


it's just a cosmic joke

by tacosaretasty



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Amelia's always been chief of neuro (like it's supposed to be), Angst, Dirty Talk, Drunkenness, F/F, Fluff, I can't help it I love the gays, I love Slexie but in this work Mark and Lexie never dated, Intern Lexie, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Female Character, LGBTQ Themes, Lexie is queer, Lexie is the softest, Lots of Angst, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Praise Kink, Sexting, Shameless Smut, Strong Female Characters, and she's bi, it sounds like just smut but there's a lot more than that, there's another Shepherd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2018-12-11 05:03:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11707371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tacosaretasty/pseuds/tacosaretasty
Summary: Victoria Shepherd is known to be pretty rational, but, after having her heart broken, she makes some reckless decisions.Lexie Grey just wants to get over George O'Malley.





	1. Surgery is my only girlfriend

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfiction I've ever written, so please be kind. I'd planned on writing it as a way to end boredom, but after getting a ton of good comments from a few friends who read it I decided to post it. Hope you enjoy!

 

**_It's Just a Cosmic Joke_ **

 

“Twenty-seven year old female, signs of injury in the left ulna, radium and scapula, perforations in the stomach area and possible head trauma. Taking her up to CT, someone please let OR 2 know we’re coming right after that!”

The ER was absolutely chaotic. Doctors and nurses running around trying to defeat death, crying wives and children, and an enormous pool of blood under bed 3. Friday nights were always a muddle: drunk college kids driving around, co-workers who reunited and ended up getting into a fight, all kinds of things that were supposed to be fun, but ended up turning into a giant, bloody, tragic mess.

I knew how to handle the situation calmly. Growing up having Amelia and Derek Shepherd as my siblings – besides Addison Montgomery and Mark Sloan, who were always around the Shepherd household – had its perks, especially because of all the knowledge they passed onto me when I first started med school. But it was still my second year of residency. I had a lot to learn.

“Shepherd!” Owen Hunt’s firm voice echoed through my ears, as the big redhead approached me and the patient in the gurney. “I’ve already kept you here long enough, and you’re _just_ out of surgery. It’s past midnight. Go home.”

“And lose this awesome trauma case? Um, respectfully, I’d rather not.”

“Just go, Vicki. Take a rest, eat a little, be with your girlfriend. You can come back to work tomorrow.”

 _Holy fucking shit._ My girlfriend. My beautiful, impatient girlfriend, with whom I was supposed to go on a dinner date at eight and completely forgot.

“Oh, crap. I _do_ have to go.” I said, quickly turning around in order to make my way to the locker room.

 

/ / /

 

“Pick up, pick up, pick up…” I kept muttering as my girlfriend’s name – Morgan West – shined on my phone screen, but she didn’t answer any of my calls. “Come on…”

The automatic doors to the hospital opened as I got near them, and the cold wind immediately hit my arms –I’d been so worried about forgetting the date that I’d also forgot to put a coat on. I didn’t really mind, though, and hung up the phone since Morgan had probably already gone to sleep. Or she was just too mad at me to pick up.

That apprehension was justifiable, given that our five-month relationship was already nearly coming to an end. My girlfriend was a personal trainer – you could tell just by seeing her perfectly toned body –, and the crazy hours I had to spend in the hospital were always the main reason of our arguments. I tried to tell her that the work hours weren’t my decision, but she still claimed to need more attention. Attention I just couldn’t provide. The amount of time I spent in the hospital was definitely higher than the year before, when I was an intern, because being a resident was all about impressing the attendings and Chief Webber, and many responsibilities came with it. Being a Shepherd wasn’t so easy, either. Even though Amelia and Derek had thought me a lot of what I knew, they were two of _the_ best surgeons in the country. It was hard to try and stay out of their shadow.

And we’d just happened so fast. We met at an Arctic Monkeys concert Callie basically dragged me to, and got along right away. I got her number, she got mine, and we started texting and calling each other nonstop for two days, until we went on our first date and started dating shortly after that.

Maintaining a relationship with West was not an easy task. She was loving, funny and crazy good in bed, but could also be too needy, uncomprehensive and unsupportive – it was quite a combination. I’d never say it out loud, but dating her was draining sometimes, even though I absolutely loved it. She was my first serious relationship since high school, since my incredibly annoying commitment and intimacy issues had made me only have short-term boyfriends and girlfriends and one night stands during college.

“Hey, Vicki!” Meredith Grey came running towards me in the parking lot, followed by her recently found little sister, Lexie. “Wait up!”

I stopped walking, and they soon caught up with me near one of the benches on the sidewalk. “Hey, Mer. Lexie. What’s up?”

“Not much, just thought you seemed a little worried. Is something wrong?”

“Well… I fucked up with Morgan.”

“How bad?” The blonde asked.

“Pretty bad. You know we haven’t been on the best terms lately… So we set up a dinner date today to talk it through and make it out of this mess. Then a trauma came in and Hunt told me to stay, and I completely forgot about my girlfriend and stood her up at her favorite restaurant.”

“Oh, no!” Lexie murmured, quickly widening her eyes. “Sorry. But bad move.”

“I know. And I’m pretty sure that, by this time tomorrow, I’ll be a single girl.”

“Want to go back to my place and drink it out?” Meredith offered. We were close, given that we were on the same intern and resident class. “I bought this expensive bottle of tequila I’ve been meaning to try.”

“Nah, thanks. I think I’m just going to do what Hunt said. Go home, take some rest and enjoy my last few moments as a taken person. I need to be well rested if I’m going to have my heart broken tomorrow.” I shivered at the possibility of Morgan breaking up with me. “God, I’m such a fuckup.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself.” Lexie said. “We all forget things. And being a doctor… It’s a lot of work. She should understand you got caught up.”

“Have you _met_ Morgan? She’s going to kill me and enjoy doing so.” I took a deep breath, fixing a lock of hair that kept falling in front of my eyes. “But this is on me. I should have prioritized her.”

“Don’t sweat it, Vicki, I’m sure it’ll work out.” The older Grey tried to comfort me, even though I knew what she said wasn’t true. “And if it doesn’t, the invitation’s still up. You can always drink expensive tequila with me and wash away the heartbreak.”

“Thanks, Mer. You too, Lexie. I think I’m going to head home now. All I want are my silky sheets.” I started walking again, while the Grey sisters walked beside me towards Meredith’s car. “See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow.” The blonde one answered, as I walked away from them.

It was a good thing I lived in an apartment right across the street from Seattle Grace, because driving home that tired was something I really didn’t want to do. It was also good that my roommates, Cristina Yang and Callie Torres, weren’t going to be home, because the place was never quiet with the both of them around.

“Hey, Dr. Shepherd.” Lexie’s smooth voice made me stop walking.

“Yeah?”

“Good luck.”

“Thank you. I’ll need it.”

 

/ / /

 

On my short walk home, Morgan was undoubtedly the only thing in my mind. I felt so stupid. Inconsiderate. All the exhaustion was still there, but I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to get some sleep anymore. Not like this. Not without knowing where my relationship was going.

God, I was going to miss her. Not having her around anymore would be so hard, and I _really_ wasn’t used to losing people.

The fifth floor button on the elevator shined, indicating that I’d gotten to where my apartment was. The doors opened, and I walked slowly and hopelessly in the hallway, until I saw someone standing in front of the blue door I was about to unlock.

It was Morgan. Sitting by my door, arms crossed inside of the same leather jacket she wore all the time. My heart raced, not quite ready for what I knew was about to happen, and my girlfriend’s lips parted in a sarcastic, downcast smile, her eyes slightly swollen and red specifying she had cried earlier. _Oh, no._

“Look who finally decided to show up.” Her voice was hollow. Dead.

I had no idea what to say. She just kept looking at me with those narrowed, gloomy, perfect emerald green eyes, and guilt hit me harder than before. I had made her _cry_ , when it was my job to make her smile.

“B-baby, I can explain.” I said lowly, watching as she laughed bitterly. “A trauma came in, and Dr. Hunt needed all hands on deck, I ended up forgetting to–”

“Oh, of course.” She interrupted me. “A trauma came in. It always seems to be the problem, huh?” She stood up, taking a few steps in my direction, but still standing on a certain distance. “Traumas _always_ come in. And, well, if they don’t, some patient codes. Or, I’ve heard this one before, Dr. Bailey kept you in late? Aw, my poor baby. So smothered by work you didn’t even care to give your damn _girlfriend_ a _fucking_ heads-up and left her sitting alone in a restaurant for one _entire_ hour before realizing you weren’t showing up at all.”

“If we could just take this inside–”

“You’re so caught up on this hospital you can’t even remember you have a girlfriend!”

“I’m sorry, this won’t ever happen again, today was just _so_ chaotic and I haven’t even had a chance to breathe all day long. Can we please take this inside?”

“Just shut the _fuck_ up and listen to me, for God’s sake!” She raised her voice, and I was pretty sure the whole fifth floor could hear her then. I put my head down, knowing that the best I could do not to get her even angrier was listen quietly to what she had to say. “I knew dating you was a mistake. How in the world did I fall in love with a hardheaded, insensitive workaholic? That’s exactly what you are, Vicki. An obsessed with work borderline sociopath.”

I stood quiet for another second. Opened my mouth to say something, but the words just didn’t come out. My hands clenched into fists, while I desperately tried to keep calm or else I would start crying. I’d always been too proud to beg, but right then I didn’t even care anymore.

“Please, don’t go. I’m going to make this right. I love you.”

“You don’t! You love _patients_ , you love _traumas_ , you love _surgery_.” Morgan’s voice came out hoarse, distraught, loud. “I knew dating a bisexual would never work out, but I thought we would end up badly for other reasons.”

I chose to ignore what she’d just said, even though that had been highly offensive. A lock of hair fell down her face, covering one of her eyes, and I felt the urge to brush it back, but decided not to.

“We’re done.”

That single sentence tore me apart. I had no idea how I hadn’t fallen to the ground, my knees trembling, my heart aching so bad it was like someone hit it with a baseball bat. I wasn’t ready to be left alone.

“I’m so sorry.” Was all I could say – because I was sorry. Sorry for forgetting our date, sorry for not giving her enough attention, sorry for myself.

Morgan’s boots knocked against the floor, making sounds that were somehow overwhelming to me. As she walked past me, towards the elevator, her eyes focused directly on me, and her voice went back to hollow.

“I _never_ want to see you again.”

And, just like that, she entered the elevator.

I found myself alone, standing before the blue door to apartment 502. As it turned out, I wasn’t the one that got away that time.


	2. Then we're talking. And we're drinking.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vicki goes to Meredith's for that bottle of tequila and, somehow, ends up naked in Lexie Grey's room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of smut and drunken fluff.  
> Don't forget to leave Kudos and, if you can, comments. They're great motivation.  
> Chapters are going to take longer to be posted since they're getting bigger, sorry :/
> 
> Hope you enjoy! :)
> 
> (If you're a Wynonna Earp fan, please check out this new story I've posted http://archiveofourown.org/works/11707575/chapters/26365551 . It's mostly focused on Wayhaught, but there's also a relationship between Wynonna and an original female character - because bisexual Wynonna is everything.)

Meredith heard a buzz on the wooden nightstand, which made her wake up quickly. All kinds of swearwords went through her mind – she’d been so tired lately for all the time she’d spent in the ER –, but her demeanor softened as she realized that it wasn’t her pager. It was just someone texting her.

She picked up her phone, the brightness on the screen blinding her when she unlocked it. Whoever it was that texted her had better have a good reason for waking her up in the middle of the night.

_Morgan dumped me. Still up for that tequila and talking you promised?_

It was Vicki.

She texted back.

**Oh, God. I’m sorry. I’ve never liked her anyway.**

_Thanks, it actually does make me feel a little better. But you didn’t answer my question…_

Meredith didn’t want to drink tequila and talk feelings with Vicki. She was too tired for that. All she wanted was to close her eyes and sleep till she simply couldn’t anymore.

But damn it, she was just too good a person. She couldn’t let her friend cry alone in the empty apartment.

**Sure, come over. I’ll get the tequila ready.**

_Thanks, Mer. Be there in five minutes._

Meredith scratched her eyes and groaned lowly – not to wake up Derek – before getting out of bed with subtle moves. It was a good thing Grey was so tired when she got home that she didn’t even care enough to change into pajamas, because now she still had her clothes on – which meant she wouldn’t have to change back.

The blonde doctor walked downstairs, making a lot of effort not to trip on the steps. She reached the minibar and picked up two tiny glasses, also pulling that bottle of tequila she talked about earlier and placing them on the coffee table.

Soon enough, the doorbell rang. Vicki had arrived.

Meredith walked lazily to the door, only to find her friend standing there with a sad smile on her face.

“Hey, Mer. Thanks for having me.”

“Sure, no problem.” She gave Vicki space to walk inside. “Come on in.”

And she did – but not before she left her shoes near the door.

As soon as they sat in the couch, Meredith’s eyes began closing smoothly. She couldn’t help it. She was just _so_ tired.

“Oops. Guess I shouldn’t have come. You could’ve declined, you know. I wouldn’t be upset.” She heard Vicki say, and opened her eyes so quickly and clumsily that it became obvious she was doing her best to stay awake.

“No. No. You’ll talk to me. Come on, tell me everything.”

“Already did.” Vicki chuckled sadly, holding her knees against her chest. “Go to sleep, Mer. Sorry for coming in this late.”

“I won’t sleep anymore, for real. It’s only I had _such_ a long day…”

“That’s why I’m telling you to go upstairs. Go. Take some sleep. We’ll talk another time.”

“I won’t leave you sad and lone–”

Meredith stopped talking as footsteps were heard down the stairs. It was Lexie. As she finally finished coming downstairs, her face turned to the two women sitting in the couch.

“I can’t sleep. What are you guys doing up?”

Mer stopped, and took a good look at her sister, a brilliant idea coming up to her mind.

“Vicki’s girlfriend kicked her to the curb.” Vicki looked at her friend, babbling an ‘ex-girlfriend’, which was ignored. “She needs someone to talk to, but I’m too sleepy for that. You can’t sleep.” She stood up, walking over to her sister. “Sit there, drink, and talk to her. It’ll give Vicki someone to talk to and you something to do while up. I’m brilliant.”

The blonde resident started climbing the stairs, disappearing from their sights in a few seconds.

 

/ / /

 

I stared at Lexie, and she stared back, neither of us saying anything.

“Well…” She broke the silence. “Can I sit there?”

“You don’t have to.” I took a few seconds to process my words, noticing they’d come of a little rougher than I intended. “Sorry, what I meant– You _can_ sit here, of course, but you don’t have to talk to me. I shouldn’t have come, anyway.”

“You don’t want me to?”

“It’s not necessary. I’m fine.”

“You wouldn’t have come here if you were.” She walked over to the couch, sitting next to me. “And you don’t look fine.”

“Okay, I’m not fine. So what?” I shrugged, then rested my head on my palm. “And thanks, I feel a lot better right now.”

“You know that’s not what I meant. It’s just…” Lexie paused for a second, maybe searching for the right words. “You look hurt.”

“I _am_ hurt.”

“Then we’re talking. And we’re drinking.” I didn’t try to convince her otherwise anymore, because it sounded like the best thing I could do at the moment – it sure sounded better than going back to my dreary apartment and drearily crying over a bucket of dreary Ben&Jerry’s on my own. “But I’m not that big a fan of tequila. What do you say we drink wine instead, Dr. Shepherd?”

“Yeah, sure. I like wine better than tequila, anyways. And it’s not Dr. Shepherd, it’s Vicki.”

“Then wine it is, Vicki.” Lexie stood up, walking to the bar and picking up two glasses and a bottle of Pinot Noir. Then, she walked back to the couch and sat next to me, pouring a little wine in one of the glasses and handing it to me. She served herself too. “So, tell me. Why are you hurt?”

“Morgan dumped me.”

I sipped a generous amount of wine at once, receiving a discreet but noticeable perplexed look from Meredith’s little sister.

Meredith’s little sister. How weird was it that I was having drinks and talking my relationship problems to Meredith’s little sister at three-thirty in the morning?

I didn’t care at that point. My heart was broken and I was devastated.

“That I know. But how did she?” I raised an eyebrow at her. Did she really want all the details? “You said you weren’t supposed to talk till tomorrow. Then how did she dump you today?”

“I found her sitting by the door when I got to my apartment. She said a lot of things and then broke up with me, and I’m sure that even the old cat lady that lives next door knows how terrible of a girlfriend I am.”

“Was she that loud?” Lexie sipped her wine.

“Yeah, she was.” I laughed breathily. “Didn’t even think of lowering her voice when she called me hard-headed, insensitive and obsessed with work.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad. I mean, it is bad. But maybe she’ll come around later and change her mind. Notice it was a big mistake to let you go.”

“She also called me a borderline, sociopathic...” I finished my glass in a gulp. “And she never wants to see me again.”

I poured one more glass of wine.

“Oh.” She said. “That does sound bad. I mean… Sociopathic? Isn’t it a little too much? You’re not a sociopath. Maybe she’s the sociopathic one. After all, she did yell bad things about you to the whole building. Yeah, totally a sociopath.”

“You just said sociopath so many times it doesn’t even sound like a word anymore.” I giggled, gulping the wine again. “I miss her.”

“I know you do.” Lexie finished her glass.

She poured another.

“But you shouldn’t. She doesn’t understand your job, and decided to jump straight to conclusions. It’s her loss.”

“It’s just– I love her. I love her so much.” I took another big sip of my wine, starting to feel lighter, floaty. The pitiful look Lexie threw at me made me a little angry, but I ignored it. “You wouldn’t understand, I mean, you’re a ray of sunshine. I’m not. The last time I felt like this, in love… I was in high school. Since then, all my relationships have been a giant failure. Maybe I wasn’t meant for relationships. Not the way that I was built.”

“I’m a ray of sunshine?” She chuckled, clearly slightly drunk already. “Of course it’s the way you were built. Everyone can love, but some people just need to find the right person.”

“I’m not so sure about that. I’ve been around. I’ve dated. Guys, girls… Simply didn’t work out. And you know why, Little Grey?” She denied with her head. “Because I’m a fucking lost cause. I don’t commit. I’m the poster child for commitment and intimacy issues.”

“I’m not sure they would put a child in a poster for commitment issues.”

I laughed, pouring more wine in my glass.

“You know what I meant.” A long gulp. “I’m beginning to think that this is all just a cosmic joke. A cruel cosmic joke. The cosmos is laughing incessantly at me right now. Every single fucking time I tried to commit to someone it didn’t happen. I lost interest, I panicked, I ran. When I finally feel like I can give my everything to someone, she is the one who runs.”

“I feel you.” Lexie finished her second glass of wine, and quickly poured more. “But with me it’s the exact opposite. I get attached too easily. I slept with Karev once, and got hurt when he told me it was nothing more than a one night stand. Then I became friends with George, and I try so hard, you know?” She sipped the red alcoholic drink in her glass. “I try to make him notice me. I bend over backwards for him, and he doesn’t even know I’m there!”

“I’m sure it’s not exactly like–”

“I gave up on scrubbing in Sloan’s surgery, in which case I diagnosed the patient, only so I could help him study for retaking the intern test.” The younger girl closed her eyes and laughed a little, shaking her head slightly in denial. “And then he went celebrating with Dr. Stevens. So I told him how I feel, and he simply said he’d never noticed I liked him. The whole fricking hospital sees it. He didn’t even pay attention.” She looked down to her legs. “I know, I’m pathetic.”

“You’re not pathetic.” I said, drinking more wine. I wasn’t even counting anymore. “It’s charming. Admirable. You gave up something _you_ really wanted so someone you love would get something _he_ really wanted. It’s noble.”

“Would you have done it?”

Her dark night-sky eyes stared at me. They were incredibly beautiful. How had I never noticed them before?

Maybe it was the wine, but in that moment I thought that I could get lost in those eyes any day.

“No, probably not.” I answered honestly, pouring another glass of wine. “But then again, I’m a cold-hearted borderline sociopath who’s obsessed with work and only cares about herself.”

“You forgot hard-headed and insensitive.” She giggled, drinking some more wine and I laughed too.

It wasn’t much of a laugh, actually – it was something more like a grin. Truth is, though I admired her sense of humor, that big smile in my face was there because the sound of her laugh was so pleasing. It was like medicine to my poor little broken heart. It soothed the pain, even though it was only for a few seconds.

And then we went back to silence, none of us knowing what to say anymore. She gulped her wine, and poured a little more. I did the same thing.

“Hey, Lexie.”

“Yeah?” She lifted her head up, facing me with those dark brown eyes I’d begun to notice and learn.

“George’s an idiot. He leaves wet towels on the bed. He sings the same song for days when it gets stuck in his head.” I took another sip of the wine in my glass. “Oh, he also eats the last slice of pizza. Every time.”

She chuckled discreetly.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

We talked more and more, and, when we stopped to notice, the bottle of wine was laying empty on the coffee table. She got another, then another, and we drank and talked and laughed and lost count, until there was no more wine in the house.

I was too drunk.

“Aw, shit.” Lexie said. “We’re out of wine. Too bad.”

“Perhaps it’s for the best.” I giggled. “I mean, I, more than anyone, need to lose my cool, but you’re too tipsy already.”

“You’re tipsy too. Very tipsy. Tipsy Vicki.” She opened her mouth in an ‘O’, laughing at what she’d just said. “It rhymed!”

“It did, kinda.” I chuckled. My eyes faced the coffee table and I squinted. “Is it weird that I really want a pop-tart right now?”

“Not really. I could use a pop-tart too, but Karev’s big mouth ate all of them.”

“Karev’s a moron. So is his big mouth.” I stopped for a second, raising an eyebrow at the young intern in front of me. “Do you think that our wanting pop-tarts and not having any is a cosmic joke?”

“It probably is. Fuck you, cosmos!” Lexie bit her lower lip, which – I’d come to realize in between glasses and more glasses of wine – were so pink. Incredibly pink, with just a little bit of red in the inner tips. At a point, I found myself wondering if they tasted like cherry. “Is it weird that I desperately want to put slippers on? I have cold feet right now. I mean, not figuratively. They’re literally freezing, it’s like, fifty-seven degrees outside.”

“Do you have any slippers?”

“No. I left it in the apartment I used to share with George. Another cosmic joke.” She paused for a moment. “Is it weird that I really want to call George an asshat?”

“Not at all. Is it weird that I want to call Morgan?”

“Call Morgan what?”

“No, I mean, actually call her. Pick up the phone, dial her number and say how much I love her.”

“It’s not weird, but it’s a terrible idea. You’re super-duper drunk.” She semi-closed her eyes. “Is it weird that I haven’t had sex since the Alex thing?”

“I miss sex with Morgan. She’s a freak in the sheets.” I scratched the back of my head. “Is it weird that I’m talking about my sex life with my friend’s little sister?”

“Maybe. But I think you should look into– Ooh, there’s a lash on your cheek.”

She lifted her index up to my left cheek, getting unconsciously closer to me. Her fingertip – which was a little cold, but in a very weirdly pleasant way – slid through my cheekbone, as she unsuccessfully attempted to get the eyelash off of it.

“I… Got it!” She pushed her finger away, but then noticed it hadn’t come off.

As it turns out, getting an eyelash off of someone’s cheek is an extremely hard task when you’re drunk.

“Dammit. Let me try again.”

She started sliding her finger through my cheek again, as focused as ever. Her eyes were just a little bit squinted, the tip of her tongue pressed between her lips.

“It won’t…” Lexie began saying, but then stopped. She was too concentrated to talk, it was simply adorable.

The young intern opened her eyes slightly more, and I felt dragged to not letting my own eyes stop looking into them.

They were so brown, and so shiny. So expressive. They told exactly how she felt.

And the best part was: there was no Morgan in them. Absolutely nothing to remind me of my ex-girlfriend, whose eyes were light green.

Even though Morgan’s eyes were colored exactly like the emeralds, Lexie’s eyes just had something else.

The only thing that could stop me from looking right into Little Grey’s eyes at that moment was the fact that she licked her bottom lip slowly, biting it softly.

I found myself thinking about the taste of her lips again. Probably wine right now – for obvious reasons –, but I still couldn’t help but wonder if there was even just a little bit of cherry there.

My thoughts on her lips were stopped when her laugh sounded audibly, her hair falling graciously over her shoulders.

She lifted her index up again – but now with the lash on it.

“Got it!” She blew it away. “Is it weird that it took me a whole minute to get an eyelash off of your cheek?”

“A little.” I chuckled.

“Either way, I did it!” Lexie stood up clumsily in pure joy caused by the booze and raised her fists in celebration, but – due to her drunkenness – she ended up falling right next to me in an awkward position, in which her face was just a few inches away from mine.

I felt my shoulders tense instantly as she didn’t pull away. She just stood there, looking at me – while I did the same.

After a few seconds, her lips parted in a big smile, and she giggled lowly – without pulling away.

“Is it weird that I tripped on my own feet?”

“Not really, you’re super drunk. _We’re_ super drunk.” I chuckled smoothly, trying to cover up the tension I was feeling. Everything I said came out as a whisper, even though it wasn’t really my intention. “You really can’t stop saying this ‘is it weird’ thing, can you?”

“Is it weird that I can’t?” She whispered too, moving her head a little. Her breath on my neck made my whole body shiver.

Lexie didn’t seem to want to get out of that position, because, once she started getting unsteady, she pressed her hands against my shoulders for support.

Her lips were now even closer to my own, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of hers. And I wasn’t exactly proud of the things that went through my mind in that moment.

 _Vicki, that’s Meredith’s little sister_ , I thought, trying to convince myself to fight against my urges.

_You don’t get attached and she gets way too much attached. She’s a nice girl, you don’t want to screw her up by breaking her heart._

_She’s straight._

_You’re sad and broken hearted, you miss Morgan, that’s just it._

Then Lexie looked right into my eyes too. Her hypnotizing gaze made me gulp.

I looked away, facing the roof instead. I didn’t know what I would do if I looked into her eyes again.

Actually, I did, but I didn’t want to think about it.

She took me by surprise when her thumb gently caressed my cheek, making me look at her again. I clenched my jaw, trying to contain myself.

_Oh, crap._

“Lexie?” I whispered again, so low that she wouldn’t have listened if she wasn’t so close to me.

“Mmh?” She murmured, fixing a lock of hair behind my ear.

“Is it weird that I really want to kiss you right now?”

“Probably.”

She leaned in and, next thing I know, her lips were on mine.

 _I knew it_ , I thought. _I can taste the cherry_.

Of course it could be an illusion caused by all the wine.

Lexie’s hands cupped my face gently, as I leaned forward to try to make us reach a more comfortable position.

And then it hit me.

I was kissing Little Grey.

“Hey.” I pushed away smoothly, whispering even lowlier. “We shouldn’t…”

She rubbed the tip of her index softly against my lips, making me stop talking.

“Do you want this?” Her voice sounded slightly deeper, hoarser than usual.

It made me tremble from head to toe.

“We’re broken hearted, and you’ll regret it tomorr–”

“Do you want this, Vicki?” Her gracious – some sort of majestic – gaze kept me from saying anything. The words wouldn’t come out, and I just stared at her while she bit the inside part of her cheek. “Answer me.”

“Y-yes, but that’s not the point…” I managed to say, noticing my breath was heavy and I was struggling to control it.

“That _is_ the point. I won’t regret it tomorrow.” Lexie leaned her head forward, biting my lower lip in a sensual way that made me let out a groan I didn’t even know I was holding in. “And I really, _really_ want this right now.”

She kept staring at me – probably waiting for a more certain confirmation –, and I simply decided to send all my reasons to space.

I felt the tension in my shoulders slowly fade away as my lips touched hers again. Lexie’s hands went straight to my shirt’s collar, pulling me closer as she smiled into the kiss. I slid my tongue on her bottom lip, and the feeling of her tongue touching mine made my body get hot – I felt that uncontrollable rush, that urgency.

It felt so wrong. I was muddled and wasted and would probably regret it in the moment it ended. It felt so immoral.

There were many reasons why it felt wrong. The top one, though, was the most controversial: it felt wrong because it felt _so_ right. It felt so _needed_.

So I didn’t stop.

She settled down on my lap, forcing me to sit with my knees quite separate, while she undid the first two buttons of my red flannel shirt. My hands posed on her hips, and we didn’t stop kissing even for a second.

Little Grey bit my lower lip again, pushing away a little bit. I moved forward, trying to get her lips on mine one more time; but she touched my chest, keeping me from kissing her.

I stopped everything I was doing, so I could look into her eyes.

“Is this not okay anymore?”

“No, Vicki, it’s not it. Of course it’s okay. _God_ , it’s super _fricking_ more than _okay_.” I smirked, waiting for her to tell me what was wrong then. “It’s–We can’t do this here. Let’s go to my room. Meredith could wake up and feel thirsty, or Derek could hear us. And Izzie gets hungry in the middle of the night sometimes. Karev could also come down here, he often has trouble sleeping.”

“Oh, sure.” I sighed, a little relieved she hadn’t given up on what we were about to do. “I forgot you lived in a frat house.”

“It’s not a frat house. It’s just… Meredith’s very hospitable.”

I chuckled.

“Okay, then. Let’s go to your room.”

She prepared to get up, but I didn’t let her. Instead, I wrapped my hands around the back of her thighs and picked her up, standing on my feet. I struggled to keep steady – normally, I could do it with my eyes closed, but the alcohol in my system wasn’t helping – as I listened to her gasp in surprise.

“You’re strong.”

I gathered all the steadiness I could get, and it seemed to work out.

“Yeah.” I said, as we began walking upstairs. “I’m a lot of things, you will see.”

“You’re also pretty cocky. That I see.” She joked, grinning at me.

That smile almost made me fall down the stairs – but no one has to know that.

“I’m just confident. It’s hot.”

Morgan used to say that, I thought. But the thoughts about my ex-girlfriend faded away as soon as I got back to paying attention to the amazing girl in my arms.

I almost let out a groan when I noticed the way her hair fell on her shoulders, but I contained myself. She just looked so good. We were now standing in the middle of the second floor of Meredith’s house.

“Which one is yours?” I pointed to the room doors with my head.

“None, actually. Mine’s in the attic.” She whispered, so we wouldn’t wake up the others with our loud voices.

I walked her up another set of stairs, finally getting to the small welcoming attic room, managing to swirl the doorknob without letting her fall off of my arms.

Once we got into the room, I closed the door with my foot and pushed Lexie’s back up against it. We went back to kissing urgently, her arms were wrapped around my neck, standing on my shoulders, while her fingers ran through my hair – occasionally pulling it harshly, when the kiss got too intense.

I moved my mouth to her neck, leaving slow open-mouth kisses, licks and bites – not too strong (I didn’t want to hurt her, obviously). I often sucked her skin between my teeth – which I found out she was really into – but not long enough to leave marks.

When I sucked that point that drove her crazy – three fingers above the clavicle, a little bit to the right –, she panted roughly. As I kept licking and kissing the same spot, she moaned lowly extremely near my ear, which made me feel my center warm up.

“Please...” She groaned, going back to kissing me.

“Please what?” I murmured, my hands a little upper now, dangerously near her ass.

“T-take my clothes off.”

I walked to the bed, tossing her there. She fell on her back, and her eyes – even though still pure and curious – had a bit of lust, desire in them.

I took my own shirt off first, unbuttoning it carelessly – I just really had to get it off of me – and took off my jeans clumsily. Then, I climbed in bed and placed my knees on each side of her hips, also standing on my elbows.

“You’re hot.” She said, looking up and down at my body. “I’ve never said it to a woman before. Feels weird.”

I smiled briefly, caressing her cheek with the back of my index.

“We can stop if you want to.”

“No!” Lexie exclaimed, widening her eyes a little bit. The denial probably sounded louder than she intended, because she lowered her voice right away. “No. Don’t stop. I want this, I want this _so bad_.”

“Your wish is my command.”

I heard her murmur something like “that sentence is so cheesy”, but cut her off before she could even finish talking. My lips went straight to hers, and she spread her legs just enough so I could be on my knees between them. I think she got the message, because, next thing I know, she was lifting her back forward a little bit – giving me complete access to take her purple tank top off.

I tossed it somewhere on the floor – without really bothering to look –, and the view of her bra made me both shiver – because, well, it was Lexie with no shirt on – and giggle.

“Seriously, Little Grey? Baseballs?” I referred to the pattern in her sports bra.

“It’s not like I planned this.” She blushed slightly, but never looking away from my eyes. “If I’d known…”

“Nah, don’t sweat it. I kinda like it. It’s sweet, just like you.”

I leaned forward to kiss her again, and she corresponded. Her tongue rubbed up gently against mine, but we separated quickly when I took her bra off, sliding the straps up her arms.

She placed her hands on my cheeks, moving her head front to kiss me again, but I didn’t let her.

“Not just yet.” I said, slightly moving my head back. “I want to look at you.”

I didn’t know exactly why I felt so dragged to look at her, and feel her, and be good to her. It was probably the effects of my ex-girlfriend, I thought. Drinking that much liquor always got me over affective – which was the rarest thing in the world when I was sober – and, added up to the broken heart, it made me desperate for even a little something to remind of Morgan.

Or so I thought.

I gazed at Lexie’s body breathily – full of want, desire, crave. My eyes went from her black sweatpants’ waistband to her face, going through her abdomen, thorax and neck. I took some extra time watching her breasts. They were perky, medium-sized – pink (but sort of light-brownish) nipples, with very few freckles on them. Her chest went up and down, due to her compassed breath and I felt the urge to touch her. I lifted my hand, reaching for her boobs – but I didn’t touch them right away. I had to know if she was still okay with this.

“May I?”

“Yes, _please_.” She was shaky, shivery – clearly nervous.

“You’re beautiful.” I said in an attempt to calm her down –I meant every word –, pushing her shoulders softly so she would lie down again.

She bit her lower lip, lying on her back. Her eyes faced me tenderly, and her cheeks were faintly blushing. That’s got to be one of the best things I’ve ever seen.

“Thank you.” She murmured.

I went back to the position I was in before I took her top off, with my knees on each side of her hips and my elbows giving me the extra support I needed.

I tilted my head down, becoming face-to-face with her left breast. My tongue gently slid around the hardened nipple a few times, as I felt her start to shiver again, trembling under my touch.

It felt kind of awesome to have that power over her.

I began rubbing and pinching her right nipple gently, while I sucked the left one between my teeth, licking it relentlessly. The moans that were now coming out of her mouth gave me motivation to keep going, alternating between using my hands and my mouth on each breast.

“Fuck…” She groaned, sending shivers all over my body. “This is _so_ good. B-but I… I need more. _Please._ ”

I licked the crack between her boobs, gently sliding my tongue down her abdomen, and leaving some kisses along the way.

Watching her gasp for me became my favorite hobby (for just that night, I told myself).

I placed my fingers near her hips, playing with the waistline of her pants for a few seconds before sliding it down to her knees. She moved her legs clumsily, kicking the air a few times, so the sweatpants would come completely off and she’d be more comfortable.

“I need you to be a good girl and spread your legs. Can you do that, Lexie?” I said, and then left one gentle kiss right beneath her navel.

She nodded lazily to my question, groaning to the kiss in a way that made me lose my mind and then spreading her legs and, then again, I was between them.

My indexes played provocatively with the sides of her underwear, while my other fingertips rubbed gently against her hips skin.

“Q-quit provoking me…” She babbled, making me flash her a side smile.

“I’m just waiting for your permission.”

“Y-you have it. To do it all.”

 “I’m just a sucker for consent.” I clarified, caressing her thighs tenderly.

“I kinda think that’s hot, actually.” Her body trembled slightly as my hands went a little higher. “Just–Just take my damn panties off already.”

“Okay.”

I giggled at her tone, hooking my fingers around the waistband of her underwear. I was about to slide it through her legs, when she stopped me.

“Wait a second.”

“Is something wrong?” I immediately asked, without moving forward.

“No, it’s… Take off your bra, first. I want to see you too.”

My hands went straight to my back and – with some sort of surprisingly steady and not at all unprecise moves (which was quite impressive, considering my drunkenness) – I reached my bra’s clasp, unhooking it and throwing it on the floor.

Lexie’s discreet lip bite to disguise a low groan made me feel my heart beat faster (and my center throb). I could watch her bite that soft lower lip all day, especially now that it wasn’t kinda-pink-kinda-reddish anymore – it was all red and dazzlingly swollen, because of the way we’d kissed earlier.

“You’re insanely hot.” She murmured, gazing at my body.

I could feel her tremble a tad as I answered to what she said by smiling wryly, and pushed back a little so I could bend over to face her intimacy. I didn’t even need to take her underwear off to know how wet she was – the subtle mark noticeable in the fabric and the scent (that drove me insane) made it very clear how much she wanted that.

My lips parted in a soft moan when I realized my effect under her, and I slid the moist panties down her legs, leaving them aside and focusing on what I was going to do next to make her feel good.

“Bend your knees a little further for me, will you?” I asked gently, a bit hoarsely.

Little Grey did exactly as told, and I babbled a “good girl”, leaning down to face her center again.

As I had already concluded before, she was soaking. I could see her wetness trickle down her thighs, leaving discreet traces of what we were doing in the sheets.

“Holy _shit_ , Lexie.” Was the only thing that I was able to say. The view made me shiver, and I just couldn’t wait any second longer to put my mouth on her.

My tongue traced her slit softly, which got her whole body shaking, and she let out a carelessly loud moan.

“Not so loud.” I muttered against her sex. “They’ll hear us.”

She gasped as I licked her again, this time all the way up to her clit. I quickly started to trace a pattern – zigzagging my hardened tongue from her swollen clit to the slit, and going back up the same way.

She began panting, moaning and groaning incessantly – but this time carefully lower. I gasped a few times too, due to her taste. It was so good. My own center was desperate for attention, but I had to make her feel her legs fail from such pleasure first, I had to find out what drove her crazy.

That’s why I started tracing different patterns – circles around the clit, turns, random lines literally everywhere –, and sticking to the ones that made her bite her bottom lip the hardest not to yell from delight.

“M-more…” Lexie jabbered, and that was exactly what it took for me to circle her entrance with the tip of my index, inserting it slowly.

She tugged her hips down, wiggling against my finger as I began pumping slowly, just to tease her a little.

“What did I– Oh…” The young intern interrupted herself. “What did I say about provoking me?” She let the words out in a pant.

I moved my finger even slower, taking my tongue off of her for a moment.

“You’re gonna have to refresh my memory.”

“Q-quit doing so.”

“And how am I supposed to?”

“Just fuck me properly already.”

I pushed one more finger into her, starting to thrust faster now. My mouth went back to her – sucking her clit between my teeth, while I brushed the tip of my hardened tongue against it –, which made her let out a prolonged, delicious moan, and that only got me more eager to learn her body.

I curled my fingers, brushing her upper wall and touching every part of it – that turned out to be her softest spot of all. She just went crazy when I did.

“D-don’t stop…” Lexie sighed, jerking her hips harshly against my fingers and mouth, and moving one hand to take the hair off my eyes. I looked up at her, the pale eyelids pressed hardly against each other and the even more swollen lower lip being bit to control the high sounds she clearly wanted to let out suddenly became my favorite view so far. “ _God_ , Vicki…”

My thrusts and licks got faster and faster, and it didn’t take long for her walls to start clenching my fingers.

Once I pushed a third finger inside her and pumped faster, her groans got louder. She couldn’t control them anymore.

“I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m com–” Lexie interrupted herself with a lurid, long, incredibly pleasant moan, while she came undone on my fingers and mouth.

I licked all her wetness off, prolonging her orgasm, and – when she was finally so sensitive and so exhausted that I had to stop – moved up to kiss her lips softly, caringly.

The kiss got more intense, and she took one hand down to inside my underwear, gently cupping my hot center.

I separated our lips.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I want to.” Lexie whispered, starting to press her palm against my clit. “I really do. If you want me to.”

“I do.”

She didn’t waste time and tease like I did – her fingers went straight to my slit, pushing inside me and thrusting harshly as her palm kept putting pressure in my clit.

“You’re so wet.” The brunette intern leaned forward to kiss my neck. “Did I cause this?”

“Mm-hm.” I muttered, subtly grinding against her hand. “It was all you.”

“That’s hot.” Her voice was hoarse again, which made me tremble from head to toe.

My legs started to fail and I came almost immediately, falling beside her in bed. She took her fingers out of me, lifting them up to her mouth and sucking on them obscenely.

After Lexie finished “cleaning” her index and middle finger, she turned to me, sustaining her body on her left hip.

“You taste good.”

I chuckled, turning my head to look at her.

“Thanks. So do you.”

A long pause. She held me in her gaze, those mesmerizing dark eyes facing mine.

She finally decided to say something.

“Am I gay now?”

I clenched my jaw, inhaling and then exhaling deeply.

“You are whatever you are.” She stared at me with a confused demeanor, and I tried to clarify what I had just said. “You’re not necessarily gay. You still like George.”

“Thanks for reminding me of that.”

I mentally cursed myself.

“My bad. It just slipped out.” I blinked a few times, going back to the previous topic. “What I’m trying to say is: you like a guy. So you’re not gay. You could be bisexual. Or pansexual. Or not really label yourself. That’s very personal, and you don’t have to figure out right now. Take your time to know yourself.”

“What are you?” She whispered, keeping her eyes closed a little longer than usual when she blinked. “If I may ask.”

“It’s fine. I like girls, this you know. But I like guys too... I consider myself bisexual.” I paused for a second, and then started to laugh lowly, ironically, remembering something. “Morgan’s a lesbian. She despised the fact that I’m bi, used to imply that automatically made me slutty. As a matter of fact, she brought it up in her breakup speech. She said she knew dating a bisexual wouldn’t end well.”

“She’s a dickhead.” The drunken tone in her words were simply adorable.

I smiled sadly at Lexie.

“She’s right, though. Maybe I am slutty. I mean, we haven’t even been broken up for five hours and I’ve already slept with someone else.”

“It doesn’t mean you’re slutty. Just means you’re single. Screw Morgan and whatever she thinks.”

“Screw Morgan and whatever she thinks.” I repeated, smiling genuinely this time.

I checked the alarm clock that stood on the intern’s nightstand. Five-forty-two AM.

Damn it. I should probably go home – we were both drunk and waking up in Meredith’s sister’s bed and having to face everyone the next day would be very uncomfortable. Also, she wouldn’t want me to be there when she woke up.

“Anyways, I should head home. Thanks for tonight.” I tried to stand up, but only then I noticed how exhausted my body was.

“Don’t go.” She said, raising her voice a little. “It’s late, and you’re drunk. Stay. It’s okay.”

“Really? Because I think I should–”

“Stay.”

I didn’t say anything, because it didn’t feel necessary. Lexie pulled the sheets to cover us up, and closed her eyes without even bothering to turn off the lights. We were both too tired for that.

“Hey, Lexie.”

“Yeah?” She muttered.

“Is it weird that I just had sex with my friend’s little intern sister?”

“Maybe it’s just a cosmic joke.” Her lips parted in a smile, and that was the last sight I had before my eyes closed smoothly and I fell asleep.

And perhaps – just perhaps – I dreamed about that smile that night.


	3. Resident repellent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vicki desperately tries to avoid Lexie, that until Thatcher Grey shows up in the ER with a massive cut on his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! Here once again with a new chapter (I'd say this one is quite big). Don't forget to leave Kudos and comments, they're amazing motivation and, in case you're a fan of Wynonna Earp, please check out my Wayhaught fanfiction "Skinny Dipping" (in case you want the link here it goes: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11707575/chapters/26365551). If you can, please help spread my work around so more people will see it. Constructive critics are welcome!
> 
> Enjoy! :)

Waking up is inevitable.

You wake up every morning after a deep sleep. For that, you need the circadian rhythm to happen. It consists of the circadian drive telling the pineal gland to stop producing the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin in preparation for awakening.

Another factor necessary for us to wake up spontaneously – without environmental stimuli – is the sleep homeostatic pressure. Across the night, sleep pressure dissipates due to the clearance of sleep-promoting substances from the brain. This means there is less and less drive to remain asleep.

That’s what grants us wakefulness in the morning.

But sometimes you don’t wake up.  Sometimes you injure your brain severely – and this can happen in many different ways. Head injuries can cause the brain to swell – and, when this occurs, the fluid pushes up against the skull. It can cause the brain to push down on the brain stem, which may damage the reticular activating system, which is a part of the brain responsible for arousal and awareness. Therefore, you become a vegetable.

The brain could also bleed – because of an aneurysm or a tumor, for example. Bleeding in the layers of the brain may cause a coma due to swelling and compression on the injured side of the organ. This compression causes the brain to shift, damaging the brainstem and the RAS.

There are many more reasons why you could get in a coma and – maybe – never wake up. A stroke, hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia, oxygen deprivation, infections, toxins, seizures – a whole bunch of alternatives.

And, every now and then, people die. The heart stops pumping blood to the rest of the body. We, the doctors, perform CPR, defibrillate, do absolutely _everything_ that we can to make that heart beat again. Sometimes, however, it doesn’t.

But, when you don’t die nor become a vegetable, you wake up.

And that’s what I did. I woke up.

The soft, dark red purplish silky sheets rubbed up against my bare skin, while my head rested peacefully on a fluffy pillow. The lights were on – which was quite uncomfortable –, but it still didn’t ruin the marvelous feeling of being curled up inside the sheets, with nothing to worry about while I was stuck in the perfect first three seconds after you wake up, when reality hasn’t hit you yet.

But reality is a bitch.

Warm fingertips brushed up against my waist lightly, almost imperceptible. I opened my eyes – without really wanting to, because images from last night started popping up in my head.

Well, at least it wasn’t an aneurysm.

But it was bad. _So bad_. I rolled discreetly in bed to confirm what I already knew: Lexie Grey was sleeping like a baby next to me, her lips slightly parted, her smooth, peaceful snores echoing through my ears.

I was, pretty much, fucked up. Besides having slept with my friend’s little sister – a “straight”, pure, affectionate intern –, I had lost my girlfriend. Damn.

Why can’t I get Morgan out of my mind?

I couldn’t be there when Lexie woke up. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to have to face her now that we were sober. Until the day before, we hadn’t even talked without being in a group of people – and now I’d already slept with her. I shouldn’t have. I should’ve known better.

But we were drunk.

Damn it, liquor.

I started getting up gently, careful enough not to wake her up, because that would be even more awkward.

I was finally standing on my feet, reaching for my clothes on the floor. I actually struggled to find some of the pieces – like my bra, that ended up behind the nightstand –, and keeping it down while I walked across the room was quite hard, especially because the wooden floor creaked a few times.

I was buttoning the creased flannel shirt I’d worn the night before, staring at a few pictures on the walls, with my back turned to the bed. I heard a deep breath coming from behind me. _Shit._ She’d woken up.

“What are you doing?” Lexie muttered softly.

I turned around to look at the young intern, flashing her a forced smile.

“I think I should go.” I fixed my shirt’s collar.

“We don’t have to do this.” She sat on the bed, covering her nudity with the sheets.

“Do what?”

“You don’t have to be weird with me now.”

“I won’t.” I said, even though the whole situation felt pretty weird. “We don’t ever have to talk about this again. It never happened.”

“But Vicki–”

“It’s cool, Lexie, really.” I glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand to check if I was late for work. It was nine-fifty-four, and my shift would gladly start at eleven. “See you at work.”

“Hey, don’t–”

I opened the door and quickly closed it, starting to go downstairs. She was probably feeling just as weird as I was – especially about the whole new “am I gay?” thing –, but she’s too good a person to be impolite and tell me to get lost.

I was relieved that I hadn’t crossed paths with anyone – but that didn’t last. When I got to the living room, Alex was sitting on the couch with both of his feet on the coffee table and a bowl of cereal resting on his lap.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, turning his eyes back to the television.

“Good to see you too.” I walked towards him, trying to mentally come up with an excuse.

“Just curious.” Karev stuck a spoon full of cereal in his mouth, and kept looking at me. “You look guilty.”

“Morgan broke up with me.”

“Too bad, she was hot.” He shrugged. “Still doesn’t answer anything I said.”

“I came here to drink and talk to Meredith, but she was too sleepy and asked Little Grey to listen to my problems. We had a late night, so I stayed over.” I smiled briefly at the excuse I gave – it wasn’t a lie, it just wasn’t detailed. “And Morgan _was_ not hot. She _is_ hot. We broke up, she’s not dead.”

I walked towards the door, sticking my feet into my boots lazily.

“Aren’t you having breakfast?” I heard Alex’s voice again, and turned around to face him.

I couldn’t. Lexie was going to get dressed and go downstairs, and I simply couldn’t.

“No time.” I hesitated, thinking of something else to say. “I promised Cristina I’d stop to get peanut butter for her. I forgot to buy it last time I went to the grocery store.”

“Oh. Okay, then.” He kept watching TV, and I left the house.

On my drive home, I couldn’t help but lick my lips, secretly mourning the lack of the cherry taste I’d enjoyed so much the night before.

 

/ / /

 

Lexie Grey ran downstairs, her tank top’s left strap hanging lazily – she didn’t care enough to check if everything was alright. Vicki had taken off, left without even saying a proper goodbye.

Lexie was quite offended by that.

Don’t get her wrong – it’s not like she was a needy girl desperate for attention, who thought that now that Vicki had “deflowered” her the older woman was supposed to be cute and act like a couple.

Not at all. She wasn’t a kid. She understood what happened, they slept together after a drunken night, no feelings, no falling in love, none of that.

But she couldn’t help feeling a little bit hurt.

As much as the night before was all about being drunk and young and stupid and forgetting George – even if it was for just a split second –, sex meant a lot to Lexie. Not in the “I love you, let’s get married” way, but she expected the youngest Dr. Shepherd to be at least nicer to her now, to acknowledge her existence. She always developed some sort of fondness for the people she got intimate with like that, and she knew she had to stop doing so. It was just inevitable. This endearment did not consist of falling in love with the other person, it was just… Lexie cared too much.

She cared too much for her sister when they met – and Meredith didn’t care for her at all back then.

She cared too much for Nick Hanscom, the patient with the carotid artery that could blow at any second – and he bled out.

She cared too much for George O’Malley – and look where that got her.

“We’re out of milk.” Alex announced as soon as she finished going down the stairs. “And Cheerios.”

The young intern shrugged, ignoring what he’d just said.

“Have you seen Vicki Shepherd around here?”

“She just left. Went to get Yang some peanut butter or something like that. Didn’t know you guys were friends.” Karev placed the empty bowl – that previously had cereal in it – on the coffee table, and faced the brunette in front of him. “She’s a good roommate. She goes grocery shopping for the people who live with her. You should try that.”

Lexie chewed the inside of her cheek. He didn’t seem to know anything about what happened the night before.

“Yeah, we’re friends… And no way. You get your lazy ass off of the couch and do the dishes every now and then, and maybe I’ll consider buying you milk and Cheerios. Maybe.”

“That’s exactly why Izzie is my favorite roommate. She would buy me milk and Cheerios.” Alex crossed his arms over his chest, resting his head on the back of the couch. “Speaking of roommates, aren’t you gonna go back to living with O’Malley?”

“No. And don’t talk about him.” Lexie scratched the back of her neck, walking to the kitchen. “Turns out he’s a worse roommate than you. And a worse friend.” She raised her voice as she opened the fridge to get some blueberry jam.

“And you just love him!” Karev yelled so she could hear him.

“Shut up!” She started preparing a classic PB&J, and heard Alex get in the kitchen.

He poured a glass of orange juice for himself, and sat on one of the four wooden chairs in the room.

“And he doesn’t give a crap about you.” He said, disdainfully. “Poor Little Grey.”

The young intern was perplexed. Why would he say something so mean?

“You know what, Alex? I tried to like you, because my sister says you’re a good person who’s been through a lot, or whatever. But I don’t care anymore. You’re vapid, and you’re self-centered, and you’re obnoxious. And you’re an ass. I can’t believe I’ve ever had a crush on you.”

“I’m not the problem. Neither is O’Malley. You’re like a resident repellent.”

“What?” Lexie didn’t know why she was listening to anything Karev had to say. He was a good friend from time to time – but he could also be a pain in the ass when he wanted to.

“When you and Meredith first met she couldn’t even stand to look at you without wanting to puke. Then you slept with me and got all touchy feely, and I pushed away. Yang calls you ‘three’, which makes me not sure she even knows your name. O’Malley is apparently not aware that you exist and, well, Shepherd just took off on a hurry like she didn’t want to stay any minute longer in this house after supposedly spending a night talking feelings and drinking with you. Think she didn’t want to run into you in the morning, because you probably annoyed her so much with your little blabber mouth or that insane lack of attitude you got. Maybe that’s why O’Malley doesn’t like you back. Because you’re _incredibly annoying_. We just _tolerate_ you.”

Those words cut Lexie deeply. She gulped, looking at him with tears wanting to come out of her eyes – but she didn’t allow them.

She sucked it up, grabbing her sandwich and placing it on a plate.

“I feel sorry for you.”

The young intern walked out of the kitchen, her throat a little sore from holding back the tears. And then she found herself upset about things she shouldn’t even care about.

Did Vicki really leave the house on a hurry because she didn’t like Lexie at all?

Did Vicki hate having sex with her?

Was Lexie not good enough?

She didn’t know why that bothered her so much. She didn’t know why she felt like that, _especially_ towards a woman.

 

/ / /

 

Dr. Montgomery had a patient with two uteruses. Dr. Sloan had to build a skin graph for a baby in need. Dr. Bailey was in a very complicated whipple. Dr. Robbins had just lost a kid from short bowel syndrome. My sister and my brother were working on lost causes.

So, yeah, the hospital was really chaotic. And it wasn’t even noon yet.

The pit wasn’t that insane, though. Dr. Hunt had asked me and a few other residents to cover it – someone had to. I really wanted in on Addie’s case, but Izzie was the chosen one this time, after all, I’d been on her service for over three weeks in the past month. Arizona, though, said that she would get me in one of her cases if she had the chance to.

I got to the emergency room, picking up a clipboard with a patient form and a pen at the nurse’s station, and walked over to one of the beds.

I slid the blue hospital curtains that guaranteed the patient’s privacy and, much to my surprise, Thatcher Grey was sitting on the bed. His gray hair was messy, and he’d missed two buttons in his creased brown sweater.

“Dr. Shepherd!” He grinned, stood up. “How’s my favorite daughter’s boyfriend’s sister doing? What about the good-haired gentleman you call your brother? Derek Shepherd. Dereeeek Shepuuurd.”

He was definitely drunk.

“Hey, Mr. Grey.” I wrapped one of my hands around his shoulder, helping him sit down again. “Let’s sit back. Have you been drinking?”

“Just a _little_ bit.” Thatcher put his index and thumb together, trying to show me he’d drunk a small quantity – it was, of course, a lie.

Then I noticed he had a big wound in the back of his left hand – and he would undeniably need stitches.

Meredith’s father started messing with the little objects in the metal tray next to the bed, and I tried to drag his attention by making small talk.

“You can’t touch those, sir. You might injure yourself even more.” He nodded and babbled something like ‘yep’, and I kept talking. “So, how did you get this cut? It’s pretty big.”

“I’m drunk. I’m, like, super-duper drunk.” He giggled, and I laughed breathily. “And I tried to get Susan’s old mixtapes in the attic. I needed a ladder for this, because I couldn’t reach the highest shelf. But I had a bottle of whiskey in my hands…”

“Let me guess… You fell of the ladder, the bottle broke and the glass cut through your skin?”

“Eeeexactly.” Thatcher watched as I picked up a chair and settled it next to the bed, sitting on it. I also picked up the metal tray, placing his injured hand on it. “Am I going to need stitches?”

“Yes, definitely. The wound is too deep to leave it like this.”

“It’s okay.” He smiled politely, his clumsy drunk voice slightly calmer now. “I want to see my daughter. Can you get her, please?”

It was a plausible request. I knew that Meredith hated to see him, but saying no to a drunk man with a hand that I had to stich up wasn’t in my plans.

“I’ll have a nurse get Meredith for you.”

“No! No, don’t do this. Meredith doesn’t like me very much. I was talking about Lexie.”

“Oh.” I gulped, flashing him a forced smile. I was trying so hard not to think about last night – and now this. “Okay.”

It all came to me at once. I thought about Lexie and what we did in her room throughout the whole morning, and having those things on my mind made me inevitably think of Morgan. Which brought me to the dilemma I was in: should I call her? Should I apologize again? Should I forget the things that she said and just try to get her back?

It was probably a bad idea. Well, I seem to be a master at performing those.

“Hey, Nathan!” I called the nurse who walked by Thatcher’s bed. He stopped and stared at me, waiting to hear what I had to say. “Can you get Lexie Grey, please? Tell her that her father’s in. Mention it’s not bad, though, he’ll just need a few stitches.”

“I’m on it.” He answered, and started walking towards the ER exit.

“He’s such a polite gentleman.” Thatcher murmured, letting out a discreet giggle. Then, he looked directly at me, his face changing expressions so quickly. “I know I must be a pain in the ass right now. It’s just– It’s Susan’s birthday. It’s her first birthday I spend without her. I just wanted to remember her.”

“No need to explain yourself, Mr. Grey.” I put the hospital gloves on and picked up a syringe and placed the right-sized needle on the tip. Then, I took the anesthesia in the little box that stood on the supply shelves, and put some of the liquid in the syringe. “You’re going to feel a little sting now, but then it will stop hurting. It’s the anesthesia. I need you to stay still, please. I can close the curtains if you need more privacy.”

He nodded, and I slid the blue hospital curtains. Then, he held perfectly steady, and soon enough I applied the anesthesia injection in his hand.

“ _Ow._ Right there. It’s a little worse than a sting, you know?” Thatcher pressed his eyelids together, and then opened his eyes again. “And, yes, there is a need to explain myself. It’s barely noon, yet here I am, drunk and pathetic in the emergency room at the hospital my kids work at. And I’m making a total fool of myself in front of my daughter’s friend. Also, the daughter in question hates me, but has every right to since I abandoned her and put together a whole new family. Don’t get me wrong, I’m–I love my family. I love Lexie. I love Molly. And I love–I loved Susan. But, yeah. Meredith doesn’t want to see me at all. Just tell her she’s strong. Stronger than Lexie. And say that I’m proud, a lifetime’s worth of proud.”

“I will.” I didn’t know If was going to. I mean, all the things he said were beautiful and everything, but he did bail on her throughout practically her entire life, and I was not sure Meredith wanted to hear all that. “I’m going to start the sutures now.”

“Okay. Just feel free to sew my skin back together.”

I chuckled discreetly. I hadn’t had many chances to talk to Thatcher – I’d met him about three or four times, all of them in the hospital –, so I was not sure of what he was like when sober. But, drunk, he was kind of charming. Very charismatic, seemed like a good man.

As soon as I started stitching him up, the curtains that assured Thatcher’s privacy were open behind me, and I heard a familiar voice.

“I came as soon as I heard.” Lexie said, walking into the skimpy space her father and I had. She looked up at me, squinting a little bit, and then at Mr. Grey. “Vicki?”

 Her eyes grew wide for just a half second and she tilted her head front, like she’d done something wrong.

“I’m–I’m sorry. I meant Dr. Shepherd. Not Vicki. Sorry.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry.” It was the first time I’d seen her since that morning. Truth is I’d been avoiding her all day, scared that she might want to talk about what happened – or that she didn’t want to see me at all. Being there with Lexie and her drunken father was a whole new level of awkward. “Your dad came in and I was assigned him. He’s quite drunk, but it was just a minor injury. I’m handling it.”

“Lexie! How’s my favorite daughter doing?” He practically yelled, raising his free hand in the air to welcome her.

“Thank you for taking care of him.” She smiled softly, getting near Thatcher. “Dad, stay still so Vic–Dr. Shepherd can finish your sutures.”

When I heard the indiscreet switch of names she’d done, it became clear to me that it was just as awkward to her as it was to me. She probably hated that I was there.

The night we’d shared previously was without question the elephant in the room.

“That’s what doctors do.” I said, continuing to sew his skin back together.

Silence was stablished in the room, which made everything even more awkward. I could feel Lexie’s gaze burn at the left side of my face, while I finished Thatcher’s sutures.

“Aren’t you gonna give your old man a kiss?” He smiled at Lexie, who muttered ‘dad, please’ and gave him a smooth kiss on the cheek. “I’ve missed you! Hey, Dr. Shepherd, did you know that I’ve barely even seen this one since she moved in with that O’Malley kid? She scarcely gets around to pay her dad a visit. I don’t blame her, though, you doctors are very busy.”

So she hadn’t told her father she had moved out of her and George’s apartment. I didn’t really understand why – maybe it was because she didn’t want to explain the whole “I’m in love with him but he’s not aware of my existence” to him.

“Yeah, dad. I promise I’ll try harder, but you know I got crazy hours.”

“How is he, by the way? He’s such a good kid. I remember when we came in with Molly by the time she was pregnant with Laura, and O’Malley was incredibly helpful and patient. When Molly was the actual patient.” He laughed at his own joke, which got me chuckling silently.

Lexie didn’t chuckle, though. Instead, she chewed the inside of her cheeks – the whole talk about George was making her incredibly uncomfortable.

Before she could answer, I finished wrapping up a bandage around his hand.

“You’re done, sir.” I ended the O’Malley subject and stood up, taking a few steps back so Lexie could help her dad get up properly.

“Thank you, Dr. Shepherd.” He slightly tripped over his feet – but didn’t fell.

“Dad, come on, I’ll ask a nurse to get you a cab. You can sit in the waiting room while it gets here. I’d wait with you, but Dr. Yang told me to help the other residents down here once you were done, she doesn’t want any interns upsetting her in this new case with Dr. Altman.”

He muttered something and then hugged her again, saying a few words about how proud of her he was.

After Nathan guided him to the waiting room, Lexie approached me while I filled out some paper work on Thatcher’s case, leaning against the nurse’s station.

“Hey, Dr. Shepherd, do you have a second?”

“Oh, hey, Lexie.” I didn’t turn my head over to look at her – just kept writing in her father’s chart. “I was just about to go talk to you.”

“You were?” I noticed her gaze at me through my peripheral vision. Her voice came out an octave louder, which she probably didn’t plan, because her eyes grew a little bit wide. “That’s nice, because I’ve actually been meaning to–”

From the way she was talking, I assumed she was going to start questioning me about the night before – the whole “am I gay?” thing again, try to apologize (even though it was both of our decision), tell me how much of a bad idea that was. I agreed – but I didn’t think we ever had to talk about it again. So I interrupted her.

“Yeah, since your dad was drunk, you’ll need to fill up the personal information in his chart.”

“Oh.” Lexie intertwined her own fingers together, and her voice lowered again. “Okay. Y-you mean now?”

“Whenever you can.”

“Now’s okay.”

I handed her the pen I was holding, and she started writing the little necessary information left in Thatcher’s chart.

“I’ve been wondering if we could talk about last night. And this morning.”

There it was. She said it. All I’d been trying to avoid.

“I know what you’ll say. It was a mistake and we should pretend it never happened. I strongly agree.” I said between calm pauses, having an inner battle to keep my cool. For some reason, the whole subject made me extremely nervous.

“I was–” She started talking, but my pager went off.

Saved by the bell.

“Robbins wants me for a consult. Excuse me.”

“Vicki, don’t just–”

I walked away in some sort of rush, holding the stethoscope around my neck with both of my hands – I didn’t want it bouncing up and down against my shoulders.

Robbins was waiting for me in the peds ward, room number 5302.

“Hey, Dr. Robbins.” I walked into the room smoothly, smiling politely at the patient and the patient’s parents. “Did you page?”

“Yes, Vicki. I want you to meet Mr. and Mrs. Waters, and their adorable little princess, Louise.”

 

-x-

 

It would take a little over an hour for my shift to be over if I hadn’t offered to pick up an extra shift in the pit. It was nine forty-eight PM, according to my phone clock – I’d be done by eleven. Now, though, I was going to be done by six AM. Louise’s surgery was not going to be performed till the next afternoon, and the ER had quieted down a bit, which meant I’d have some time to just go out and stand on the ambulance platform, breathing some fresh air and trying to keep Morgan out of my head for even a split second.

And that’s what I did. I walked out and, from under the roof, stared at the rain drops falling incessantly on the cement floor. It was cold – not enough to make me shiver, but enough to make the smooth wind touch my face, my lab coat wobble a little bit and leave me desperate to do something I’d been thinking about all day. Something I knew I shouldn’t.

But cold nights were cruel.

I pulled my phone out of my lab coat pocket and unlocked it.

“Stupid, inconsequent, pathetic.” I muttered to myself, because that’s what I was.

My fingers ran through the screen and I opened the contact list.

“You’re making a fool of yourself.” I kept murmuring, trying to talk myself out of a situation I was getting in on my own.

I read her contact name. Morgan – with a pink heart emoji right next to it. The little emoticon just felt stupid now.

“You have no self-control at all, Vicki. _God_ , you’re doleful.”

I pressed my fingertip against the screen, finding the green button that said “call”. And I called her.

“This is just woeful. Sad, depressing, idiotic. First hand self-loathing. You should stop, Victoria, stop right now.”

The endless bips I heard were gradually killing me. She was obviously not picking up.

“She said she never wants to see you again, you reckless moron, she won’t pick up. Why can’t you just forget about her? Why can’t you help loving her? Jesus _fuck_ , you’re so pathet–”

“ _What do you want?”_

I heard Morgan’s voice.

And then I froze.

_“Is someone there?”_

“Y-yeah. I’m here. I’m here, Morgan.”

_“Then answer me.”_

“Sorry, you… Kinda got me by surprise.”

_“What do you mean? You called me.”_

“I did.”

_“Listen, Vicki, I don’t have time for this. I broke up with you, remember? Which means I don’t need to play your confusing games anymore. So just answer me. What do you want?”_

“You.”

_“What?”_

“I want you, Morgan. I want you back.”

_“I can’t believe you! I’m dating you, you forget about our dates. I break up with you and you call me saying you want me back?”_

“I would have come to see you, but you did say you never want to see me again.”

_“And I still stand for it, but that is not my point. You’re unbelievable!”_

“Just please, take me back, Morgan. I’ll be better to you. I promise.”

_“No. I’m done with dating doctors. What if I do take you back, huh? How long would it take for you to cancel our dates or just stand me up for surgeries?”_

“I’ll make it right. Please.”

_“Okay. We’re back together, starting now.”_ She paused for a second, leaving me speechless. _“Take me on a date, be here in ten minutes.”_

Dammit. It was all just a trick – she knew I was working. I always was.

“I-I can’t.”

_“Off to a good start, aren’t we?”_ Her sarcastic laughter – the one which could cut a human being deep – sounded through the phone, making me tremble from head to toe. _“You always pick work. Always. Guess you like the surgeries, the patients, the traumas better than me.”_

“I love you.”

Silence.

It had never happened before. All of my “I love you’s” always provided me a strong response from Morgan. I memorized it – first, she’d blush just a tiny bit and her cheeks would become a lovely shade of pink. Then, she would look down and grin to herself adorably, usually letting out a breathy chuckle of joy. Then, her gleaming green eyes would face me and, more often than not, she’d kiss me quickly but tenderly. Her answer would come next – a low, affectionate “I love you” would make my heart skip a beat when it came out of her lips like a song.  And now there was nothing but silence.

_“You should have acted like it before.”_ She finally said.

“Please don’t leave me.”

_“Too late.”_ Another pause. _“I already did.”_

“Morgan, please don’t–”

_“Don’t call me again.”_

A long beep. She’d hung up.

I felt so alone.

It was just me, the phone and Seattle rain.

“Dammit!” I muttered aggressively to myself and, in a moment of self-hatred and a bit of recklessness, I threw my phone at the floor and observed it meet the wet cement in the middle of the rain. “Oh, come on!”

I ran towards the phone, picking it up quickly so I wouldn’t get my scrubs all soaked. When I got back to the ambulance platform, I noticed I was not alone.

Lexie Grey was leaning quietly against the wall, looking at me with her dark innocent expressive eyes in a very similar way she did the night before.

“Broken?” She spoke softly, and her choice of words – word – got me thinking. It was almost like she was scared I’d run away if she said more words or spoke louder.

“Sort of.” I murmured, walking a little closer to her. “She asked me not to call again. So, yeah, I’m a little broken. But I’ll be fine.”

A discreet but still noticeable – and adorable – breathy giggle came out of her lips.

“I meant the phone.”

“Oh.” I put my head down, embarrassed for taking what she said the wrong way. Only then I noticed I hadn’t even bothered to check if I’d cracked the cellphone screen or made an even greater damage. I was still holding the phone, so I looked at it quickly before answering. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. “Just a tiny scratch.”

“That’s good.” She said, and then rubbed her hands against one another to try and warm up a little. “I wasn’t spying on you or anything. It’s just… This is a nice place to come and breathe fresh air when it’s not filled with patients dying in ambulances. I was quiet and then you came and, when I was about to say hello, you started to say you’re pathetic and idiotic and a moron and I couldn’t say hello anymore, but if I entered the hospital again you’d probably listen to the automatic doors opening and, well, it’d be uncomfortable. But I was not spying on you.”

“Didn’t think you were.” I clarified, putting my phone back inside my lab coat pocket and leaving my hands there too.

“Oh. Thanks.” I chuckled breathily, lazily, almost without a sound. She thanked me for not thinking she was spying on me. That was, indeed, endearing. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re pathetic. Nor idiotic. Nor a moron. And you’re not woeful, sad, depressing and doleful. I mean, maybe you’re kind of reckless because of phone throwing and everything, but recklessness isn’t always a bad thing, right?”

“Wow. You actually remember all the self-loathing expressions I used to refer to myself?”

“Photographic memory.”

“Oh, yeah.” I smiled aside. “I forgot.”

“That’s something I don’t say very often.” I chuckled smoothly, and then we were back to silence.

It became a tad awkward again – which got me wondering if I’d always feel this uncomfortable around her. Neither of us seemed to want to leave, though, because we just stood there without taking even one step towards the ER door.

“Can we talk?” Lexie whispered, which gave me some flashbacks of the night before.

She didn’t raise her voice when we were sitting on the couch. Nor when I mocked the pattern of her bra. Not even when we talked afterwards. I found myself wondering for just a brief moment if she knew how good her voice sounded.

“We _are_ talking.” I answered in the same tone.

Of course I knew _exactly_ what she wanted to talk about. But I tried to avoid it. I didn’t want to go into the “the night before” subject.

“You know what I mean. We can’t just act like last night never happened, I… I need an explanation, at least.”

“What?” I squinted. “There’s nothing to be explained, Lexie. You don’t have to overthink this. We were drunk and miserable, and that’s just what happens when we’re drunk and miserable.”

“But I–”

“It’s okay, Little Grey. Really. You don’t have to talk about this when you clearly didn’t enjoy what happened, because, I mean, you’re straight. I’m cool with this. We _can_ act like last night never happened.”

“I _did_ enjoy what happened.” She said, almost soundless.

More silence.

“You what?” A very confused expression must have popped up in my face, because she looked at me like I was George in his first surgery back on our first day as interns – which is the same surgery who gave him the 007 reputation.

“I liked it. I _really_ did. And I don’t know what that makes me. Bi, pan, whatever it is. All I know is I–I liked it.”

“Oh.” Was all I could say for a few seconds.

“Yup.”

And then we were quiet again. The silence didn’t last long, though – about ten to fifteen seconds –, because Lexie broke it once more.

“Do you think I’m a resident repellent?”

“A resident what?”

“Repellent. It’s just… Alex said a few things to me this morning, about how I push people away and how basically every resident in the program hates me.”

“You really shouldn’t listen to anything Karev has to say in his bad days. And we don’t hate you.”

“He has a point. I mean, he _clearly_ hates me. Meredith used to hate me but I think she tries not to show she hates me because we’re sisters. Yang refuses to teach me, and Karev mentioned you ran out of our house desperately this morning, like you couldn’t bear being there anymore, so I guess I sucked at the whole being intimate with a woman thing.”

So _she_ was worried _I_ didn’t like it? God, she couldn’t be more wrong.

“He _does not_ have a point. He kind of hates everyone, so you’re just another one in his list. Meredith loves you. She doesn’t try to hide her hatred for someone, even when they’re family. If she hated you, you’d know. Also, Cristina… She’s Cristina. She refuses to teach all the interns because she thinks it’s a waste of time.” I paused, crossing my arms over my chest. “And I admit that I did run sort of desperately out of your house this morning. But not because you sucked. I ran because I thought you regretted what happened and didn’t want to see me.”

“So you _don’t_ think I sucked?”

“Not at all.” I said. “I had an amazing time.”

More silence – but, this time, not the uncomfortable kind I was starting to get used to. It was more of a necessary silence, because Lexie’s very expressive eyes seemed to be lost in the pavement while she looked down and certainly thought something through.

She looked at me again, holding her left wrist in her right hand.

“I need help to forget him. George. I have to forget him.”

I tilted my head forward, waiting for her to keep talking.

“When we had… When we were intimate, I didn’t think about him. Not even for a second. You helped me forget. I just want to forget.”

I gulped.

“You’re not suggesting what I think you are, are you?”

She took a step forward. Then another. Then another one after that.

“I know you want to forget, too. Just… It makes sense. I think I also helped you forget. So why shouldn’t we?”

My jaw nearly fell on my feet. I couldn’t believe she was actually proposing that. Lexie Grey was asking me to be her casual lay.

“You’re an intern. And you’re Meredith’s little sister. It’s just wrong, for so many other reasons.”

“And I’m old enough to know what I want.” She was dangerously close to me. If anyone walked in on us, we’d have a big problem. There was no excuse for how close we were. “I want to forget. I want to help you forget. So it’s up to you.”

It made a hell lot of sense. We were young, heartbroken and available. We’d done this before, and we’d both forgotten about the people who broke our hearts.

But it was wrong in so many levels.

So I did what I always did: I brought medicine to the scene.

The frontal lobe is the part of the brain that grants a person the ability to think and make choices. Cognitive control and value-based decision-making tasks appear to depend on different brain regions within the prefrontal cortex. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex – as known as the vmPFC –, evaluates risk and reward as part of a neutral network that also includes the orbitofrontal and frontopolar cortex. Injuries there are more sinister. Contrarily to the people who have lesions in the part of the prefrontal cortex which controls thoughts and decision-making, patients with damages in the vmPFC appear normal – their language skills, perception and overall intelligence are unimpaired –, but their ability to balance reward versus risk is skewed.

I knew my frontal lobe was fine. All decisions I made came strictly from myself, and not from some nasty brain injury. My vmPFC was perfectly intact. I was _indeed_ capable of measuring reward and risk.

But, for some reason, I sent all my reasons to space and grabbed Lexie Grey’s nape and ended the distance between our lips, kissing her roughly while we stood on the ambulance platform.

Anyone of our friends could walk out of the pit doors and see us. Any paramedic could walk out of an ambulance with dying patients.

And I cared. I really cared. I didn’t want anyone to see me use my friend’s little sister as a rebound – or my friend’s little sister use _me_ as her rebound.

It was _so_ wrong. And I didn’t even have a brain injury to justify my acts.

Somehow, my hands ended up in the small of the young intern’s back, while hers were tightly gripping my lab coat’s collar. My pager went off in my scrub pants’ waistline and maybe that was the universe telling me to quit kissing that girl.

Even though I really didn’t want to stop.

“I gotta–” I started talking, but she kept kissing the corners of my mouth – which absolutely drove me crazy. “I gotta go.”

“Mm’kay.” She muttered, letting go of my lab coat. “Meet me at my place after work?”

“Can’t.” I fixed my collar, trying to look more presentable to go back inside the hospital. “I picked up the night shift in the ER.”

“On-call room in thirty, then. Can you make it?”

“I’ll try.”

“Deal.”

I nodded smoothly, thinking of the amount of trouble I was getting myself into. It was bad. And immoral. Just wrong – in so many levels.

But she was there, and she wanted me, and she helped me forget Morgan. She actually did – even if it was for just a few minutes.

I turned around to walk back into the hospital, but then stopped as soon as I thought that, besides being wrong, it was something I could have never seen coming.

“Are we really going to be each other’s rebound?” I murmured. “This is kinda odd.”

“It’s just a cosmic joke.” Lexie whispered, and then walked into the emergency room, leaving me behind with a very disordered expression in my face.

 


	4. i was going to tell you a joke, perv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George invites Lexie out and Vicki hates it. *Lots* of angst. Shameless smut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey!
> 
> first of all, thank you for the comments and kudos! they mean a lot. don't forget to leave them so i'll get motivated! also, please help spread the work around. tweet about it, show your friends, put it in a freakin' outdoor (okay, the last part was a joke).  
> i don't know when i'll update again, since i'll be extremely caught up on school for the next few weeks (but i guarantee asap) and, to those of you who are reading "skinny dipping", i'm doing my best to update this weekend. don't know if it'll be possible, though :/ to those of you who are not, please give it a chance (it's about wynonna earp).  
> if i take a little longer to update, please understand. i assure i'm *not* giving up on you, guys.
> 
> enjoy the chapter!

I unlocked my apartment door as silently as I could. It was the fourth night in a row I got home after 2 AM – one of them because of an emergency C-section Addison let me assist her through, and the other three because I’d sneaked in and out of Meredith’s house to help Lexie forget about George and let her help me forget about Morgan.

I wasn’t anywhere near that, even though Lexie and I had been doing it for a little over a week by this time. Before she dragged me into an on-call room or snuck me upstairs to her room in the attic, I was always thinking about Morgan, about our first date, about the day we met at that damn Nine Inch Nails concert, about her stupid perfect smile every time I brushed her hair back. Then, my lips were on Lexie’s hot bare skin and she held on for dear life while her fingers intertwined with my hair and she moaned my name. And I didn’t remember my ex anymore. With Lexie, it was messy and unrelenting and she seemed to love it. The right word to describe it was probably _hot_. It was incredibly _hot_. Since the night she found me calling Morgan in the ambulance platform, it was _hot_. Not gentle and careful like the first time. Just _hot_.

But, then, we finished and put our clothes back on, leaving the on-call room fifty seconds apart from each other so no one would have suspicions. It was even worse leaving when we went to her house. I put my clothes on while staring at the wall – my back turned to her, because I just didn’t know how to face her afterwards –, and she looked at me with those dark expressive glossy childish eyes, lying in bed with the sheets covering her body all the way up to her clavicle. Then I carried my shoes in my hands, because it helped me take quieter steps downstairs. I let myself out, having Morgan back in my mind throughout the whole infamous walk of shame from the attic to my car one block away – so no one would know I was there.

Every time, I’d noticed – even though we’d been doing this for such little time so far.

And the drive home was full of self-loathing too. I always turned the radio on in an attempt to make the loud music isolate the thoughts of how much I missed Morgan and how wrong sleeping with an intern was – especially _that_ intern. It never worked out, though, and I continuously hit the wheel, exasperating to let off some of the steam within me.

This time wasn’t different.

I had been so distracted after I left Lexie’s house that I didn’t even notice the lights were on from under the crack in the door until I actually twisted the doorknob. I’d already unlocked the blue door, so whoever was still awake would know I’d gotten home anyway. So I entered the apartment.

“It’s two fifty-three.” Cristina said before rubbing her lips around a nearly empty bottle of tequila.

“I know what time it is.” I answered casually – of course I was worried she’d make assumptions, but relief ran through my body when I noticed it was Yang and not Callie. Callie would make a lot of questions because she’d been extra worried about me since the breakup. Saying something about how I need to go out and have fun, and stop mourning the end of my relationship by picking up extra shifts in the ER. Cristina didn’t really care. At least I thought she didn’t. “I had to monitor a patient.”

“No, you didn’t.” She answered back. “I saw you leaving earlier. And I left, like, fifteen minutes ago. I would have seen you.”

I sighed.

“Why are you drinking tequila straight out of the bottle?” I changed subjects – not at all discreetly –, hoping she would stop questioning me about getting home late.

“Some stuff happened.” She pouted. “I won’t question you, you won’t question me. Deal?”

“Deal.”

I started walking towards the bathroom so I could take a quick shower before I went to bed – I felt dirty (by all means) –, but then realized the Asian woman’s despairing expression.

“You know you can talk to me if something’s wrong, right?” I clarified, turning my head over at her. “I won’t judge.”

“You too. Tell me if you need anything.” I raised my eyebrow discreetly at her statement. Cristina Yang really was willing to let me talk feelings to her? Not that I would – I couldn’t tell anyone about what was happening –, but it surely surprised me. Even though we’d lived together for nearly a year then and we were close friends, she wasn’t very talkative – not when it came to deep personal subjects. I didn’t really like speaking my feelings, so it was never really a problem. Nevertheless, it was nice to know I could count on her. “If I’m not prepping for a surgery. Or asleep. Or drinking tequila alone in the couch at two-fifty-six in the morning. And don’t be too touchy-feely, because it kind of grosses me out.”

I chuckled. There she was, the Cristina Yang I knew and learned to love.

She crossed her legs on the couch, and I went back to making my way to the bathroom.

“And, Vicki?” She said, making me look at her once again.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

 

/ / /

 

“Dr. Grey?” Lexie heard that familiar voice calling her last name. Her body trembled from head to toe, and a slight amount of heartache invaded her mind – just like it always happened whenever she heard that voice. “Dr. Shepherd told me to ask you for a consult in room 3405.”

George O’Malley flashed her his best smile, those vast sky-blue eyes gleaming against the white lights of the hospital.

He’d been nicer to her since she told him how she really felt. Smiling politely in the hallways, picking up extra potato chips for her at lunch because he knew how much she loved them, making sure he spoke to her every time they crossed paths in the immense hospital. He felt bad for not noticing – even though her feelings were not corresponded.

She knew the feelings weren’t mutual. That’s why she would (try) not (to) let him get to her with the entire “I feel guilty” act, because she couldn’t bear to be hurt anymore. Not again.

“Which Shepherd?” Lexie asked drily, incessantly facing the label in the water bottle she was holding.

“Amelia.” George said friendly, tilting his head closer to her. “I was thinking the other day and we haven’t been to Joe’s in ages! What do you say we go tonight? Beer on me. Peanuts too.”

It was a tempting offer. She was _indeed_ trying to set him aside. All she _needed_ right then was for George to merely back off so she could move on with her life.

But she wasn’t so sure she _wanted_ him too.

And she often hated herself for this. She was pretty much driving sixty miles per hour on a road of self-destruction. And the worst is she _knew_ it. She knew she was bringing all of this on herself.

For Christ’s sake, she was sleeping with Vicki Shepherd. A resident. Her big sister’s friend. Her boss. A _woman_. Just to get her mind off of George O’Malley, just to stop feeling for a second.

Because truth is Vicki made her not feel. Everything she felt was strictly physical, it was simply her body responding to – very experienced and effective –stimuli. But, emotionally, she wanted to stop feeling miserable, she wanted to stop feeling broken.

She wanted to stop dying inside whenever those blue eyes and that goofy smile came to her mind.

It sounds overdramatic when put like this. But she was Lexie Grey. She fell in love too fast and it hit her hard. She used to get her hopes up so high that, when they were crushed, she crumpled. She _always_ did. Since the ninth grade all she did was fall in love, delude herself and then her expectations were shut down and all of her defenses would fall at her feet. She was never proud of her reaction to all the love disappointments – over and over again the young intern would do something foolish and impulsive to try and forget whoever made her feel that way. When she was sixteen years old, Tyler McCoy broke up with her and she decided to learn how to skateboard as a new hobby – which got her a scar from the five stitches she took right below the left knee. Then, at eighteen, she saw her all-time guy crush Lewis Baker kissing another girl just before she was about to declare her feelings for him and, to “renew” herself, she went and got her nose pierced – and that resulted on a nasty infection and two weeks of having to wear a dressing in the middle of her face. When Scott Something (she really couldn’t remember his last name), an economy freshman who used to have lunch next to her in college, had a fling with her and then texted it over, she actually went to a tattoo studio and almost got a permanent drawing of flying seagulls – so cliché – in her wrist. She backed down, though, when the tattoo artist finished the sharpie sketches and picked up that needle machine and it all became too real.

This time was not the same. The reckless decisions she made back then affect her and only her – but now they had impact on Vicki too. It was supposed to make her want to stop – it wasn’t right to bring someone else into her world of craziness and self-destruction –, but having someone else do something ill-advised too kind of made her feel less awful.

And it just made sense that the resident was her rebound. Despite the fact of her being a woman – which still got Lexie very confused –, Vicki Shepherd was guarded, discreet and not at all a fan of intimacy or commitment. As she had confessed to the intern in the first night they had a real talk, Morgan was her first serious adult relationship. Vicki wasn’t very open but, after getting dumped by someone she loved that much, she built up high, solid walls and would not let anybody cross them – would not let anybody in. Every time after the first one she and Lexie had sex, it was hard, relentless and messy – bodily and psychologically –, not the least bit sweet and caring like the first time. And afterwards, she would just leave, without saying goodbye, without talking about what happened. She was the exact opposite of everything related to Lexie. And that might have been the reason they looked for comfort in each other’s bodies – maybe it was more than just the apparent hotness, maybe they strived for something (somebody, in this case) they knew was nothing like the motive they felt so miserable. Vicki was defended, shielded – nothing like the sweet and dorky George O’Malley –, and Lexie was perky and pure – by no means like the mysterious, experienced Morgan West.

Lexie wanted so badly to get over George, and she really was trying.

But then again, she was a sucker for self-destruction.

“Okay.” She said, wanting to slap herself in the face for that matter. “I’ll meet you there at eight?”

“Sounds like a plan. I’ve missed my friend.” He grinned so gracefully that Lexie’s legs almost failed, and she actually had to lean against the nurse’s station not to have her knees meet the floor. George’s pager went off. “Oh, shoot. Dr. Hunt wants me down in the pit. Either way, you have to be with Shepherd, I won’t stand in your way.”

“Y-yeah, I–I should really go see her.” And Lexie didn’t know what she meant by that sentence.

Because she really did have to see Shepherd. She just wasn’t sure of which Shepherd she was talking about.

George definitely talked about Amelia. So should Lexie, so _did_ Lexie, until she realized how much double-meaning that sentence carried. She’d accepted going out for drinks with George, she did the _one_ thing she wasn’t supposed to – she agreed to spend hours on end talking and drinking and looking at George O’Malley.

She realized she was drowning even deeper in those seawater blue eyes than she thought.

And she really needed to see Vicki Shepherd about that. She needed Vicki Shepherd to push her up against an on-call room wall and make her forget.

But, first, she needed to see her big sister for a consult.

 

/ / /

 

“You really think this is the best approach, Dr. Altman?” I narrowed my eyes, lifting the silvery pen to my lips. “I’m not sure Mr. Ramos’ heart can handle surgery right now.”

“It’s our last resource, Dr. Shepherd. He may die with surgery, but he will definitely die without it.” She answered, crossing her arms over her chest and staring pitifully at the patient through the open blinds before his bedroom window. “I appreciate the concern, though. If it was Yang on my service today she would make the cut only for the high.”

“But she _is_ the best one in cardiothoracic.” Teddy nodded smoothly, in undeniable agreement with me. “And she’s kind of pissed at me for being with you on this case, despite the fact that it wasn’t my call.”

“Well, like you said, Cristina’s the best second year we’ve got in cardiothoracic. We have to let other residents around this specialty, too.”

“She’s in OB-GYN today.”

Altman let out a breathy chuckle.

“So she must _really_ be pissed at you.” I shrugged to the sound of that – Yang didn’t care about many things, but when it came to cardiothoracic surgery, she was willing to fist-fight anyone who got in her way. She would absolutely be mad at me, and there was nothing I could do. “We’ll operate in three hours.”

Down the hall, I spotted Lexie Grey looking around – probably searching for someone – with her innocent, marveled intern eyes. They stopped wandering around the floor when she saw me standing right outside of Mr. Ramos’ room, and came walking straight in my direction.

The nearer she got, the most I realized her expressive eyes weren’t marveled. They were concerned, troubled – like she’d done something very wrong.

Lexie halted walking once she was standing few professional inches far from me and Teddy.

“Dr. Shepherd, a consult, please?”

I looked at the attending next to me, who nodded smoothly giving me permission to follow the intern.

“Just be sure to be back in thirty minutes so I can give you a little bit of a walkthrough before we actually get started with Mr. Ramos.”

“Of course.” I smiled politely at Dr. Altman in excuse and started following the intern to wherever that consult was.

We walked a lot, in complete silence. She didn’t say anything about who’d asked me for a consult, or where it was. During the whole walk, she only opened her mouth once – and it was to sigh.

“Where’s that consult, Dr. Grey?” I raised an eyebrow, waiting for an answer.

We stopped at a very empty area in the ortho ward, in which there was only a nurse half asleep in the nurse’s station and an intern sitting distracted on a wheelchair while going through a chart.

She looked discreetly to the right, and then to the left. No one seemed to even notice we were there.

I felt her right hand around my wrist, gripping it hard. She opened the on-call room door and practically pushed me inside of it, entering the dark place afterwards and locking the door.

Then I knew what that “consult” was all about.

“Oh.” I muttered as she tossed her scrub top over her head. “So this is what you mean by a consult.”

Lexie walked three steps towards me, which were enough to break the space between us. Then, she grabbed both of my hands and placed them around her waist.

I gripped my fingers hard where she positioned them, feeling her body shiver beneath them. She cupped my face and leaned forward, beginning to kiss me roughly. Of course I corresponded, obviously a tad surprised to get this kind of treatment from the young intern. Sure, sex with Lexie had been hot and everything so far, but she’d never been this harsh, this steamy; she’d never come that strong at me before.

And I quite liked it.

Her tongue seemed to be in some type of battle with mine, and it was not at all like the kisses Nicholas Sparks describes in his romantic novels. It was desperate, chaotic, mind-blowing – a hot mess of lips and tongues and teeth, and it felt astounding. Her taste was extraordinary. I didn’t know why I always got that little touch of cherry, and I wasn’t sure I cared where it came from – but it _was_ there.

“You okay with this?” I broke the kiss for a moment to ask.

Even with all the hotness and steaminess – which were almost palpable in that dark on-call room –, I had to check, I had to make sure it was still okay.

“Mm-hmm.” She muttered, going back to kissing me and taking her shoes off with her feet. Then, she held on to my shoulders to gather enough support and wrap her legs around my waist. I grabbed the back of her thighs, helping her do so, and she licked my earlobe teasingly. I felt a smooth bite there. “Push me up against the wall.”

So I did, I pushed her up roughly and firmly against the wall, and the hoarse groan that came right from the bottom of her throat made me want to keep doing hard, strong things to her.

Lexie continued to kiss me in the same rhythm as before, while my hands ran up and down her thighs and gripped them harshly. She bit my lower lip, letting her teeth slowly sink there, and then distributed open mouth kisses through my jawline, stopping near my ear again.

“You’re wearing too many clothes.”

Her voice was wheezy, her chest went up and down from all the heavy breathing, and I pushed my upper body a little bit backwards to give her full access to my lab coat – which she quickly slid down my arms and dropped carelessly at the floor.

“Throw me in the bed.” She spoke throatily, and I have to admit that I kind of enjoyed getting instructions like that.

I walked towards the bunkbeds and tossed her in one of the bottom bunks with some sort of ruggedness – but, by all means, careful not to hurt her.

Lexie’s grin when her back hit the uncomfortable mattress was, beyond doubt, the dirtiest I’d ever gotten from her. I guess I liked where that was going.

I hastily settled myself on top of her, and she shivered slightly when my cold fingertips ran down her warm abdomen, making their way to her scrub pants’ strings.

I unknotted the lace slowly, provocatively, causing Grey to groan penuriously.

“Just hurry up, Shepherd.” She rasped, looking down at me. “I’m not in the mood for slow.”

The way she talked to me then was intriguing. Outside of those four walls – the on-call room or her bedroom ones –, we barely even made eye contact. I noticed that in the first two days of our casual sex, she blushed slightly every time we talked about work-related stuff in the hallway or just bumped into each other in the middle of the hospital rush. She usually avoided me – which was kind of mutual –, and we commonly only talked about non-work issues when I approached her at the end of our shifts to ask if I could come over to her house and, well, forget about my ex.

And, in the moments we were actually forgetting about our respective platonic loved ones – in the only way we knew how to –, she’d never been that straight forward, that specific about what she wanted me to do.

I wasn’t complaining, though.

“You’re exceptionally impatient today.” I pointed out, hooking my index fingers around her scrub pants’ waistband and pulling them down in a quick move just like she wanted me to.  “Something wrong?”

“I’m also not in the mood for talking.” She answered back, that frigid tone in her voice again.

“ _You_ were doing all the talking before I even said anything.” It was true. She’d only given me instructions, but still, it _was_ talking.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t _talking_ talking. I was just telling you what to do. It was sort of like dirty-talking. _You_ asked me if something was wrong.”

“And _is_ something wrong?” I distributed my weight on my hands and knees on each side of her.

“See? You just did it again!” She raised her voice a little bit, covering her face with both hands. _So_ expressive, even in gestures.

“I’m just checking in. Shouldn’t I?”

“I don’t need you to check in. Right now I don’t need to be checked in on.” She brushed her hair back, sighing irritated.

I didn’t understand where all of that was coming from. We scarcely even talked, and now she was calling me out for making sure everything was okay?

“What do you need, then?” I asked, using the same tone as her.

All of a sudden, Lexie grabbed my right hand and guided it to her underwear’s waistline. She slid it underneath the fabric, and my fingers met her soaking center.

“ _This_ is what I need, Shepherd. Just this.”

“Oh.” Was the only thing that could manage to get out of my mouth after a few seconds. “Okay.”

She wrapped one hand around my nape, pulling my face closer to hers, and her lips met mine again. We started kissing even more desperately than before, but then she separated our tongues once more to say something.

“Give me something to look at.” She muttered, and I understood exactly what she was talking about.

I took my scrub top off fast, tossing it on the floor next to us. My hands agilely went back to her panties – which I slid through her legs urgently, granting me another dirty smile from the girl beneath me.

My lips went back to hers, our tongues moving in some sort of rush but still perfectly orchestrated, and I started rubbing her clit slowly, in no way synchronized with the furious kiss we shared.

Lexie let out a long, grasping groan, and took my bottom lip between her teeth.

“No teasing.” Her voice was husky, and that statement sounded more like a retrained moan she didn’t want to let leave her mouth yet.

“Sorry.” I muttered, flashing her a side smile. “I like teasing.”

“I’ve noticed.” She began to distribute kisses along my jaw, her hot breath tickling my face as she tried to control it. “But I can’t handle it right now. I need you to go hard and deep, and I need it _fast_.”

I didn’t have to say anything, because Grey went back to kissing me before I could even think of something. I decided to give her exactly what she wanted, so my index and my middle finger went straight to her hot mound,  quickly making their way back up so her wetness would spread all over her extension. I applied just the right amount of pressure on her clit necessary to make her whine against my mouth with my thumb, then quickly inserted two fingers inside of her.

Her hands went straight to my back once I started moving my fingers, and I felt her nails sinking in my skin. I was sure she would leave red nail marks – but it didn’t really matter at that point. The moans that came out of her mouth were now uncontrollable, and her wetness trickled down my palm as my fingers thrusted nonstop inside of her. She didn’t lie when she said she needed it. Lexie was basically dripping down my wrist, while she pushed her hips against my fingers for more contact.

“Jesus _fuck_ , Shepherd, you know _just_ what you’re doing...”

I inserted a third finger, and immediately hooked all of them so they would brush up against her upper wall – it always drove her crazy.

Except this time I ended up going a little further than I had ever gone before, and found a small soft spot that made her scream out loud.

“Are you okay?” I stopped moving for a moment, noticing her eyes were now closed tightly and her jaw was aggressively clenched.

“J-just–Right there, Vicki, right _fucking_ there.”

She hadn’t screamed because I hurt her.

She screamed because it felt so good she couldn’t keep it to herself.

I have to admit that it kind of boosted my confidence up to the roof.

I pushed my fingers there again, and she pressed her lips together, attempting to muffle another shriek – it wasn’t very effective. I took my other hand to her mouth, letting her bite my fingers so she would soften the loud noises. That seemed to work out, so I just thrusted again and again, harder, deeper, faster, relentlessly, until I felt her walls clench violently and she came undone in my right hand.

She bit my left hand stronger this time – which was actually quite painful –, but I didn’t complain. I didn’t call her out or push my hand out of her mouth, because the fact that she needed to bite my hand that hard to take the amount of pleasure I provided her left me incredibly satisfied.

I took my fingers out of Lexie’s center, and sucked all the wetness off of them. Then, I sat on the bed while she sighed harshly, trying to regain control over her breath, and grabbed my scrub top on the floor.

“What are you…?” A deep pant. “You don’t want me to…?”

I put my scrub top on.

“Have to meet Altman in eight minutes.” I declared, glancing at the clock on the wall. “And it’s kind of a long walk.”

“I brought you here because I knew it was like a ghost town this week.” Lexie clarified. I liked the way she always felt the need to clarify things. With Morgan, lack of clarity was definitely a problem. “Sorry about your hand.”

I chuckled.

“It’s okay. It didn’t even hurt that bad.” I got up, and picked up my lab coat on the floor, quickly putting it on. “Plus, it was for a bigger cause.”

It was the first time since the actual first time we slept together that we talked more than just a “see you” or “fix your hair” afterwards. Nothing too big – just small talk –, but still. I wasn’t used to that.

Lexie blushed slightly, and hid her face between her hands. There she was, the sweet shy Lexie Grey I knew.

“That was intense.” She muttered. I grabbed the pieces of clothing I’d stripped her off of and handed them to her, with a discreet smile in my face. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I walked towards the door, but then I remembered something. Something I didn’t know whether I should or should not ask. “Now that we’re not, huh, you know, anymore… You mind if I ask if everything’s okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” She sat on bed, than swiftly started putting her clothes back on.

“You _were_ pretty rough. You know, for a… Lexie.”

“What do you mean _for a Lexie_?” She raised an eyebrow, her scrub pants running up her legs.

“You don’t usually come on that strong.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Not that I’m complaining, it’s–I just wanted to know.”

“I’m fine.” She stood up, her fingers lacing up the strings in her pants with ease.

She didn’t sound fine, though. Her voice sounded frigid, straight forward, cold.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, Vicki, I’m sure. I can take care of myself.” She put her scrub top on, then walked to her shoes and stuck her feet in them.

_Jeez_ , I wanted to say. _Why so cranky?_ But it didn’t want to risk getting her even more pissed at me for something I didn’t even do.

“Okay, then. I won’t ask anymore.”

I unlocked the on-call room door, positioning my hand on the doorknob. Before I could twist it, Lexie sighed noisily.

“I’m having drinks with George at Joe’s tonight.”

My body turned over to her involuntarily, and I felt my forehead contract.

“You’re what?”

“You heard me.” She was stiff, her back perfectly postured and her breathing finally still. “I just–He asked me. I couldn’t say no.”

“Yeah, you could. As a matter of fact, you _should_.”

I didn’t know why I cared – maybe it was the knight in shining armor inside of me that every now and then decided to come out and save the lady in need. But I _did_ care, and I surely _was_ a little mad that Lexie had just ignored her need to move on so that she would go out with George O’Malley.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked George. I liked him a lot. He was one of my best friends, and probably the sweetest guy in the whole hospital. But Lexie going out with him when all she needed was to get over him was _not_ a good call. It was a terrible, ill-advised thing to do. Maybe it bothered me because I couldn’t stand to watch someone make a colossal mistake like that. I was a doctor, after all, and that made me genuinely care about one’s wellbeing.

Right?

“I know I should. But I couldn’t.” She looked down at her feet, visibly self-conscious about her decision.

“Is it a date?”

“No.” She said lowly, and kept staring at the floor. “He just said he misses his friend.”

“You know you’re making a gigantic mistake, right?”

“I’ve been making a lot of these lately.”

I stood in silence for a moment, imagining if I was one of her gigantic mistakes.

“But you can still choose _not_ to make this one.” I finally said, gesturing smoothly with my hands. “You can tell him you’re not going.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Lexie, it’s _your_ decision. You just have to tell him no.”

“I _can’t_.” There was a bit of pain in her voice now. Guardedness.

“You _can_.” I sounded slightly angrier now – though I suddenly noticed I felt the urge to yell. It was there, it was deep, and I had no idea where all that suppressed rage came from. I just wanted to yell since Lexie claimed George wanted to have drinks with her. “As far as I know, there’s nothing wrong with your frontal lobe so you’re perfectly capable of making your own decisions.”

“But–He asked me out! George asked me out. George _asked me out_!”

“Yeah, as _friends_!” I raised my voice a little more. “You don’t deserve this, it’s just going to fuck your feelings up even more!”

“I can separate things! Why does _everyone_ always think I have the feelings of a thirteen-year-old girl? I _know_ he only wants to go out as friends!”

“But it can still be very confusing! For anyone!” I ran my fingers down my hair, looking at her. She’d quit staring at her own shoes, and was now looking at me with a tad of anger in her eyes. “And you said _yourself_ you knew you should’ve said no. So do it!”

“But I love him!”

I breathed in deeply. Then breathed out. I knew it’d be hard to deal with this situation – but I didn’t even know why I tried.

“The ventromedial prefrontal cortex.”

“ _What_?” She asked impatiently, and I tried my best not to go back to yelling.

“The ventromedial prefrontal cortex. It’s the part of your brain responsible for evaluating risk and reward in a situation. Just be smart, Lexie. _Be smart_. Use your ventromedial prefrontal cortex in your favor!”

“You can’t mix love and science, Shepherd!” She sighed petulantly.

I didn’t understand why she’d gotten so mad. She _was_ the one who dragged me to the on-call room, acted especially rough and then told me George had asked her out like she wanted me to talk her out of it. I was controlling that weird annoyance I felt, I was willing to help, and she was being _so_ rude.

“I just thought you’d make the right choice, Grey! You’re in the right path to self-destruction by doing this, you know that, right? I was _just_ trying to help, but you don’t seem to want it anyway.”

She quieted down. Her shoulders slowly softened, and her expression became less angry. Supplicant brown eyes stared at me now.

“What if it was you? What if Morgan asked you out?”

I felt a million different things when she asked me that.

But, predominantly, I found out why it was so anguishing to find out George had asked Lexie out.

It was because there was no way in hell Morgan would do the same. She would _never_. She never wanted to see me again, she never wanted to speak to me again, she _clearly_ didn’t even want to consider being friends with me. Even though George didn’t correspond to Lexie’s feelings towards him, he was her friend. He was willing to be a part of her life. Morgan didn’t even care enough to be my friend.

So I was jealous. I was jealous of Lexie because at least her loved one still acknowledged her existence. Mine didn’t.

I didn’t want to be jealous. It was a wrong, ugly feeling, and I didn’t want to feel it. But I did – strongly.

And I got even angrier once I realized I was jealous. If only the idea of George being friendly to Lexie was already enough to piss me off, I was still far from getting over my ex. She was still deep within me, no matter how much I wanted her to leave.

I felt the urgent need to cry.

“Huh?” Lexie confronted me again. “What would you do?”

“Don’t talk about her.” I said, as calmly as possible, trying to hold in all the angst that desperately wanted to leave my body.

“But–”

My pager went off.

Damn it. I was supposed to meet Dr. Altman in the cardio ward.

“I have to go.” I looked at Lexie, pushing back all the tears that threatened to come out. I faced her bitterly now – it was a terrible habit I had. Whenever I felt like crying, I became utterly hostile to nearly everyone around me. “Have fun with George.”

 

/ / /

 

Lexie was paged by Shepherd again – the female neurosurgeon one, not the troubled resident with whom she had just had some sort of twisted fight with.

Why did Vicki even care? It was _none_ of her business – although Lexie _did_ tell her.

And Grey desperately needed someone to talk her out of it.

And, as much as she needed to be convinced, she didn’t want to. She wanted to want to. It was _indeed_ messy and confusing as Vicki mentioned before in the on-call room, it was complicated and it was no good at all for Lexie’s broken heart.

And the worst is that Lexie _knew_. She knew she was making a huge mistake, she knew she’d been unnecessarily mean to Vicki Shepherd, she knew the second year resident was only trying to help.

She knew what she was getting herself into.

“Finally, Little Grey! I’ve been wandering around this hospital looking for you!” Amelia said once Lexie met her near the cafeteria.

“What do you mean, Dr. Shepherd? I just got your page. I was coming to meet you.” Lexie threw the blue-eyed woman a confused glare.

“Next time remember to answer the page.”

Grey slapped herself on the forehead. She’d just been too distracted and Dr. Shepherd’s case was beyond amazing. She couldn’t be unprepared for this one. How could she not do something as simple as answer her page?

“Damn it.” She muttered, earning a condemnatory scowl from Amelia.

“Damn it indeed.” Shepherd started walking and Lexie followed her, trying desperately to only focus on work-related stuff from then on. “You know how complicated this case is, and if your mind is stuck on anything rather than Michelle’s parietal lobe, I suggest you leave right now before you kill her because you can’t hold a retractor properly.”

“Oh, I’m focused, Dr. Shepherd. I’m _so_ focused.” The young intern smiled with no teeth, turning her head over to the attending. “You’re letting me hold the retractor?”

“If you assure me you won’t screw it up.”

“I can assure you of this. I can assure you, and I can _reassure_ you. I’m not screwing this up.”

“Then you get to do it, Grey. Spread your wings or whatever motivational sentence was written in one of the notes your daddy used to put inside your lunchbox every day.”

Lexie creased her forehead.

“Who told you that?”

Amelia chuckled nasally.

“I just assumed.” They stopped by the elevator, and stood there waiting for it to get to their floor.

The elevator metal doors opened up and showed a very hassled-looking Vicki Shepherd standing in the middle of it. She was so distracted that it didn’t even occur to her that the doors had opened. Her body looked tense, perfectly still from head to toe – except her chest, which was moving in arrhythmical breaths.

She looked front as soon as the elevator “dinged”, the angry – yet theatrically troubled – expression in her face much more apparent now.

Lexie stood in silence, waiting for Amelia Shepherd to enter the elevator before her. She pictured that the younger Shepherd looked that disturbed because of the things she’d said earlier. Quite frankly, the intern was pretty sure that she had no business whatsoever bringing up Morgan West, and wished she could take it back. The second year resident seemed to still be _really_ hung up on her.

“Excuse me.” Vicki muttered, walking past Amelia and Lexie, and accidently bumping into her sister’s shoulder.

She didn’t turn around to apologize, as she usually did. She just kept walking heavy steps, her head up, never looking back.

“Jeez.” The neurosurgeon snapped as she and the young intern walked into the elevator. “What the hell is up with her?”

“I don’t–How–Why would you think I know?”

Lexie was definitely not good at acting naturally when she was supposed to.

“I would not, Little Grey, it was a rhetorical question.” Amelia chuckled. “Keep your cool, you don’t have to be self-conscious about holding the retractor. It’s an easy task.”

“I’m not–” The dark-eyed girl realized she had a good excuse for responding to her boss so nervously. Even though holding the retractor in the right position was important for the procedure to work as planned and it was downrightly exciting to participate, Lexie had done it a few times already. It was thrilling, but nothing new for her. But the opportunity was right there. “Yeah. Thank you, Dr. Shepherd.”

 

/ / /

 

“And we’re all done.” Dr. Altman said, and the corners of her eyes crinkled up as she smiled behind her surgical mask. “Great job, everyone. You can scrub out now, Shepherd, go tell his wife the good news. She’s very worried.”

“I will.” I stripped off of my surgical gown and gloves, tossing them both in the residues can. Then, I did the same with my surgical mask and left the OR, still wearing the light blue scrub cap that matched my scrubs.

My shoulders hurt a little from all the tension within them. The Morgan thing was really messing with my head, but now Lexie was all over it too.

She was right. If Morgan wanted to go out with me, I wouldn’t have thought twice before saying yes. In fact, I would probably fool myself with stupid ideas that she still loved me or whatever I wanted to believe. That’s what the people we love do to us – especially when they don’t love us back.

So I was being a complete hypocrite. And an _asshole._ I was jealous, full of angst and bitterness, and it was nowhere near Lexie’s fault. While I rode the elevator down to the waiting room so I could tell Mrs. Ramos her husband’s heart was beating just fine, I realized how hard-headed I was being – and it made me laugh resentfully. Morgan called me hard-headed the night she broke up with me. I guess she was right.

So, after I gave Mrs. Ramos the good news (and was hugged so tight that my ribs were almost cracked), I walked around the hospital looking for Lexie. Not that I cared about _the girl_ – I just had principles. Right? I needed to settle things with her because of my values. Also, I didn’t want the whole casual sex thing to be over. Despite my not progressing throughout the week, sleeping with Little Grey felt really helpful when I was actually doing it.

I finally spotted the young intern filling some paperwork while leaning against one of the nurse’s station in the neuro ward. I rubbed my hands against one another, then looked down at them and saw the thin tooth marks she’d left there earlier that day. My eyes went back to the girl with her face nearly inside of a patient’s chart, and I found myself thinking about beautiful she was. It’s something I’d known for a while now. I didn’t have to look too much to know she was pretty – I’d noticed since her first day in the internship program –, but once I _actually_ laid eyes on her, when I _actually_ got a chance to see up-close just how gorgeous she was, it could never be unnoticed anymore.

And when she shook, when she panted, when she groaned beneath me she looked _so_ good. So, _so beautiful_. Masterpiece beautiful. Breathtakingly stunning.

If people knew about us, they’d probably wonder how the hell I hadn’t fallen for her yet. I knew that because that’s exactly how I felt about George. How wasn’t he crazy about her? Even though Lexie and I hardly ever talked – _really_ talked –, we worked together. I saw her. Saw how well-liked, how funny, how dorky (but in an adorable way), how smart she was.

 But she wasn’t Morgan.

I walked towards her, and my hands reached the back of my scrub cap as I unknotted it and smiled politely – yet incredibly smoothly – at her.

Lexie’s head turned a little to the left, and she held a breath when she saw it was me.

“I’m sorry I brought your ex up earlier, I didn’t realize she still bugged you this much.” She said lowly, keeping her expression natural so the people walking past us wouldn’t think that was anything but a normal co-worker conversation. “But you don’t have to lecture me. I get it, I’m being foolish, I know it. But I’m also sure of what I’m doing.”

My lips formed a slight smile. I wasn’t expecting her to say she was sorry for that.

“It’s okay. I overreacted.” I cleaned my throat, as my head tilted an inch forward. “And I’m not here to lecture you. I want to apologize. I’m sorry for yelling at you and not being understanding when I should have been. I regret it.” I meant it. “It’s just–You know… The Morgan thing really triggered me. I was jealous.”

I wasn’t expecting to tell her that I was jealous. I was just going to stick with “I’m sorry”. But something about the way her bright, expressive eyes stared at my hollow ones just made me speak more than I intended to.

“Jealous of what?” She clenched her forehead, the pink lips smoothly parted.

I let out a long sigh.

“Your relationship with George.” There was doubt all over her face, so I tried to rush a little to explain what my jealousy was all about. “You like him. He doesn’t like you… It sucks. It really, really does. But he tries to hang out with you, he shows he still wants to be friends despite the feelings that got in the way. Morgan, she… I mean, she said she never wants to see me again. And that I should never call anymore. She couldn’t care less.”

“I’m sure that–” Little Grey started talking, but interrupted herself when O’Malley walked past us. She waved at him quite pathetically, like a cheerleader who had a hopeless crush on a dumb jock.

I threw a reprehensive look at her, and she rolled her eyes at me. Before he asked her to Joe’s that morning, I’d seen her try incessantly to avoid him whenever he walked by, or sat on her lunch table. And then, after the invite, she was already drooling all over him again. It made no sense to me – making a total fool of yourself when you’re in love.

Then I realized Morgan had made become one of those foolish people. It was just too late – I should’ve acted like it when we were _actually_ dating, rather than waited until after we broke up to notice I should have appreciated her more.

George walked over to us while carrying a bright smile on his face.

“Hey.” He leaned against the nurse’s station. “Did you guys scrub in on any surgeries today?”

O’Malley pointed to his own head, referring to the fact that we were both wearing scrub caps.

“Yep.” I muttered, smiling politely at the blue-eyed man. “Valve repair with Altman.”

“Dr. Shepherd let me hold the retractor today when we operated on a parietal lobe epilepsy.” Lexie smiled goofily, glancing at George like he was some sort of divinity. “But I’m even more excited about Joe’s tonight. Only an hour until eight.”

George’s blue orbs grew wide.

“Damn it, I was supposed to go to Joe’s with you tonight!” He said, and then slapped his own forehead.

“What do you mean you _were_ supposed to?” I interfered, obviously bowled over by O’Malley’s sudden reaction to that statement.

The brown-haired man scratched his nape, and the look on his face was enough for me to know that something was very wrong. Lexie must have thought so too, because I noticed her flinch hard as he opened his mouth to answer my question.

“Dr. Montgomery asked me to scrub in on an extremely delicate bowel surgery on a premature newborn. It starts in forty-five minutes.”

Lexie was stiff. I couldn’t take my – tremendously pitiful – eyes off of her, expecting what her next move would be. I would have pictured her to look more upset in a situation like this, because for what I knew she’d always been a bit of a romantic, and getting turned down by the man she loved seemed pretty awful given the circumstances. But she was just rigid.

Then, the expressiveness took part in her face again. Her shoulders relaxed, followed by some sort of sarcastic breathy giggle.

“Are you serious?” She carried a dentist’s office ad-worthy smile on her face, and her voice was incredibly smooth – even smoother than usual.

“I’m sorry. It’s–I forgot, my mind’s been so full lately and–”

“No need to explain yourself. It’s fine, apparently it wasn’t that important for you.”

“It was, Lexie, it _is_ , I miss having you around. I miss our friendship.”

She chewed the inside of her cheek.

“You should go get ready for your surgery.”

George, looking as guilty as an ill-disciplined puppy, nodded softly.

“You’re right. Dr. Montgomery told me to take care of the patient’s pre-op.” He took a step forward, getting slightly closer to Lexie. “Raincheck?”

“I don’t think so.” She smiled again, briefly, and then walked right past him.

The young intern entered the elevator like she was the calmest person alive, which was quite weird, given that she’d been looking forward to hanging out with George all day. She wasn’t just excited – she was counting the hours.

“Shit.” O’Malley murmured in a sigh. He ran his finger through his short brown hair, then looked at me and smiled embarrassedly. “I gotta go now. We should catch up sometime, too.”

“We really should.” I meant it.

Then I realized I felt like I hadn’t seen George in ages. Well, I saw him all the time – we worked in the same hospital, it was inevitable –, but we hadn’t talked in so long.

“See you around.” He said, a polite smile on his face, then walked away.

My shift was over. I was free to go home whenever I wanted to.

But I wanted to check on Lexie.

So I walked. I walked around the hospital, without really knowing why I cared – then again I figured it might be the knight in shining armor complex I had every now and then –, but I couldn’t find her anywhere.

I checked a few on-call rooms, the interns’ locker room, the ambulance platform. Then, I took a look at the OR board to see if she had been asked to scrub in on any other surgeries, but her name wasn’t written there.

Figuring she might have gone home, I decided to go too. I needed some rest after the extra dramatic day I’d had.

But, on my way to the residents’ locker room, I walked by the stairwell and, through the small window in the door, I saw her back while she sat on a couple of gray steps.

I opened the door smoothly, and the sound of her hiccups and sighs broke my heart. She was crying. She was crying because of George O’Malley.

 

/ / /

 

“Go away.” Lexie Grey sobbed, without even looking back to see who had entered the stairwell.

“I’m just checking in.” It was, surprisingly, Vicki Shepherd’s voice.

“Vicki?” Lexie turned around this time, a little embarrassed about her wet cheeks and red eyes. She just couldn’t help it. “I already told you I don’t need to be checked in on.”

“You’re crying.” The resident walked a few steps, and sat next to the crying girl. “So, yeah, I think you do.”

Lexie sighed. She already felt so silly for crying over a boy as it was, and having a resident – especially _that_ resident – watch her do so just made things worse.

“I do not. Just leave, okay?” She covered her face with both hands, the hiccups and desperate breaths getting involuntarily louder.

“Let me help.” Vicki started rubbing her shoulders gently, tracing soft circles all the way to the small of her back. Lexie flinched at the touch, but soon enough decided to let out a heavy breath. It felt good. “Amy used to rub my back like this whenever I cried as a kid. It always calmed me down.”

Grey didn’t know how to feel about that. Being compared to a crying child was not ideal. But Shepherd was being so thoughtful. She was being so, so sweet.

“I’m not saying you’re a crybaby, by the way.” The second year resident said, like she’d just read the other girl’s mind, and let out a breathy chuckle. Lexie almost smiled at that. Almost. “I only meant that it’s soothing. Works for me every time.”

“Thanks.” The intern muttered, not proud of her tremulous voice. “But why are you comforting me?”

“Because you’re sad.” Vicki got slightly – very, very slightly – closer to Little Grey. “And I’ve been told I’m excellent at cheering people up.”

_Oh, of course_ , Lexie thought. So that’s where their conversation was going.

 “Please don’t talk about sex right now, Shepherd, I’m really not in the mood.”

Shepherd giggled, then brushed a lock of Lexie’s hair behind her ear.

“I was going to tell you a joke, perv.”

“Oh.” Lexie finally used her wet, red eyes to look at Vicki. Her lips parted in a minimum – but still existent – smile, and she let a low giggle out. “I’m sorry.”

“Nah, it’s okay. I’m the one who was to apologize.”

“Why?”

“Because the joke I’m about to tell you is so bad that you’ll want to punch me.”

The younger girl giggled again.

“I’ll try to contain myself.”

“Okay…” Vicki kept rubbing circles on Lexie’s back – and it felt so automatic –, chuckling a little bit in anticipation. “Why is the mushroom always surrounded by people?”

Grey shrugged, tilting her head front so the resident would give her the answer.

“Because he’s a fungi.” Shepherd let out a genuine laughter, and, as much as Lexie tried to hold hers in, she couldn’t. It was such a bad joke. Vicki looked so outspoken, though, for what was maybe the first time since the night in the ambulance platform. She’d given up her guardedness, even if it was just a little bit. She was candid. “You get it? Fun guy.”

“I get it.” Lexie kept laughing for another few seconds, but then the George thing hit her up again.

It was a bad habit she had. Whenever she was sad and someone or something made her forget it, she’d think about how sad she was before and remember the reasons why she had become so sad in the first place. And it made her feel it all over again.

She started crying again, this time accepting all the help Vicki was allegedly willing to provide, and hid her face on the other woman’s neck curve. Her right hand went straight to Shepherd’s left shoulder, which left them in some sort of hug.

Vicki shivered to the feeling of Lexie’s breath on her neck.

“George was an ass today.” The intern sobbed. “But still, I love him. Why?”

“Morgan’s a non-understanding self-centered brat, and I’m a hard-headed workaholic with possible anger issues. You can’t explain love.”

“I think I’m okay, I think I’m getting better. Then I look at him and his eyes are so blue and his smile is so bright and he is so, so thoughtful. And kind. And extremely cute around the babies in the incubators.”

“I know. It sucks.” Vicki stopped rubbing circles in Lexie’s back for a moment, just resting her hand there. “But you make it a little less sucky.”

“I do?”

“Mm-hmm.” Shepherd murmured. “Even if it’s just… You know, temporary. You’re kind of my temporary fix.”

“I think you’re that for me, too.” Lexie’s warm tears got Vicki’s scrub top a bit wet, but she really didn’t mind. “But we’ll get over them, you’ll see. Time heals all wounds. It’s just... We have to take baby steps. It’s not like we’ll forget them overnight.”

“We can try.” Vicki knew they couldn’t, but the idea of taking so long to get over her ex was enough to make her want to jump off of a bridge. “But, yeah. Baby steps.”

“Baby steps.” The intern took a deep breath, and then lifted her head slightly so that her lips would be nearer the resident’s ear. “Can you keep rubbing my back, please?”

She still had a tad of a crying voice, and the request sounded so smooth and pure that Vicki couldn’t help but smile affectionately. The older woman’s hand went back to moving, and she subtly slipped it under the fabric of Grey’s scrub top.

“What are you–”

“Relax, Little Grey, I’m not pulling my moves on you.” Lexie chuckled suavely, but quickly sighed to the feeling of Vicki’s warm fingertips running through the bare small of her back. “It’s like we do to babies. They like skin-to-skin. Everyone does, it’s calming.”

Lexie didn’t have to say anything – the deep, pleased breath she took said everything for her. Vicki’s soft touch actually managed to calm her down. The tears stopped trickling down her face as minutes went by and they still kept quiet.

Lexie used to think that the concept of comfortable silence was overrated – probably because she was incredibly talkative, and being silent when talking was an option just seemed… pointless. But in that moment she understood why everyone praised comfortable silence. Being there, curled up on Vicki Shepherd while they sat on a couple of steps on the stairwell, made her fully get the comfortableness people talked about. They were silent, but not because they’d ran out of things to say. They were quiet because there was no need to say anything. Lexie, who was always called out for talking way too much, all of a sudden felt like words weren’t necessary. She didn’t think comfortable silence was overrated anymore.

Every now and again it felt weird for her to run into Vicki in the hallways or to work on a case with her, given the sort of “relationship” they were having – so of course Lexie kept wondering why it didn’t feel weird whatsoever to hold her so intimately. To have her stroke her back so fondly. She wondered why it wasn’t awkward that they didn’t say anything. She wondered why it felt so… natural.

She felt better by sensing Vicki’s warmth, Vicki’s tenderness. She relaxed and stopped sobbing, because suddenly she didn’t feel so bad.

And Vicki knew.

She felt Lexie’s muscles tranquil and her breathing become rhythmic. She felt her heartbeat smoothen. Her chest going up and down, air coming in and out of her lungs almost orchestrally, the smell of her shampoo crawling irresistibly into Vicki’s nostrils.

And Vicki didn’t mind being there with Lexie at all.

The resident had a weird feeling. She didn’t know exactly what it was – so she just decided to ignore it. Her brain shoved it deep down while it still could.

“Thank you.” Lexie finally murmured, softly, lowly, without even moving. “I appreciate it.”

“I know.”

And she did.


	5. I'm sorry if I think that actually saving lives is better than giving women bigger boobs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vicki gets an unexpected patient and finds herself at a life or death situation. Lexie helps her through it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! how's everyone doing? i'm sorry for taking longer than usual :( you know i try to update as soon as i can, but school is /killing/ me, so it's kind of hard. i'm sorry!!  
> if you're a fan of wynonna earp, please check out my other work. it's a college au centered on wayhaught, and there's bisexual!wynonna.  
> >>also, follow me on twitter (@haughtdamnit), i'll follow everyone back!<<  
> thanks for the nice comments and kudos, don't forget to leave them! i get back to everyone and really really really enjoy reading what you have to say about my work.:)
> 
> enjoy this chapter!

Someone once said that everything in the world is about sex – except for, well, sex. Sex is about power. I don’t agree with that statement. _Everything_ is not about sex – maybe for people like Mark Sloan it is, but not for me.

Not all the time, at least.

 I do agree that sex is mostly about power, though – when it comes to _my_ experiences. Doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman, being on top of someone while I watch them go wild because of _my_ touch is always thrilling, exciting, _electrifying._

However, every now and then, the power gets too much. That’s when I stop, when I give in and let the other person take control of the situation. Allow myself to receive and not just provide. Give up calling the shots for a moment. Surrender.

And it’s exhilarating.

In med school, they teach about the innumerous reactions of the brain to all kinds of stimuli the body can receive. When you’re _touched_ , the brain’s genital sensory cortex region fires up. The clitoris, the vagina and the cervix each stimulate different parts of it, because each can produce an orgasm independently. Continued stimulation stokes to the hippocampus, a region known to evoke dreamlike memories. The amygdala is also activated, involved in emotional expression and intense feelings. Researchers haven’t found out yet what types of emotions are experienced, but, in my experience, they’re sure as hell positive.

At the start of an orgasm, the cerebellum triggers tension in the thighs, glutes and abdomen, while the frontal cortex – which manages planning and abstract thought – comes on stream, kicking off more sexual fantasies. The anterior cingulate cortex and the insula turn on, and they may impede pain so that pleasure will be felt. Finally, the hypothalamus releases oxytocin, causing uterine contractions that generate the astonishing satisfying sensations everyone talks about. Besides triggering uterine shrinkages, oxytocin also promotes bonding to the partner – even though sometimes it doesn’t feel very effective. As the nucleus accumbens receives dopamine, those satisfying sensations are increased, leaving you over the moon. Afterwards, the brain – that was all lit up – relaxes, and it takes some time to process and recover.

And, God, sometimes it takes a lot of effort to gain control over your breathing again.

“Where did you learn that, Little Grey?” I gasped, feeling a large drop of sweat trickle through my forehead.

“I have a good teacher.” Lexie flashed me a side smile, her naked torso rubbing up against my abdomen while she leaned on my body for support. “Was it really _that_ good?”

“Are you kidding me? My legs are freaking numb.”

Her cheeks blushed slightly.

“Thanks, I guess.”

“No, Grey, thank _you_. For real.” I inhaled deeply, then exhaled loudly.

About two weeks had gone by since the stairwell incident, and we’d become more conversational after that night. Talking was, now, an option for us, and I’d gotten to know a little bit more about the intern. We hardly ever discussed feelings or our respective love failures, it was mostly chit-chat and eventual jokes – we were actually on the road to becoming friends. Making out had become a thing between us, too. Before, we’d only have sex and that was it, but we’d come to notice that making out when there was no time to strip our clothes off and lock ourselves into an on-call room was also really, really good. I already felt a little better about the Morgan thing, _just_ a little – like Lexie said, I’d have to take baby steps to finally forget about her –, but it was already something.

Lexie and I were still sleeping together, though. And I didn’t really want to stop –she didn’t seem like she wanted to, either.

Cristina had picked up the night shift in the ER, and Callie was working on a project in which she would really build hipbones from scratch, so neither of them would be home at least until the next afternoon. That was the perfect opportunity to take Lexie home with me. I couldn’t stand to sneak out of her room and walk two whole blocks to my car every time we went to Meredith’s house, and I was already out of excuses about leaving the hospital later than I should because I was in the on-call room.

“You okay?” I asked her, given that she was quiet and seemed to be in the middle of a dilemma.

She was no longer leaning on me, her back was now facing the soft bed.

“Yeah, just– I’m exhausted. What time is it?”

I pulled my phone out of the nightstand and unlocked it; a picture of Amelia, Derek, Mark Sloan and I at Joe’s I used as my lock screen shining before my eyes.

“Two fifty-four. God, I didn’t even notice time go by like this.”

She sat on the bed, pulled her t-shirt off of the floor and put it on quickly.

“I have rounds at eight tomorrow. Better rush if I want to catch some mediocre sleep at home.”

“Lexie–”

“Damn it, I forgot to get a cab.” She stood up, and put her panties on. Afterwards, she took her jeans. “You mind if I use your phone? Mine’s dead.”

“Why don’t you just–”

“Crap, I can’t wait for my cab downstairs, the streets are uninhabited at this time of the night. Or should I say morning? Anyways, it’s dangerous. Can I wait here? You won’t even notice me, I’ll just be in the living room. Or in the hallway, if you don’t feel comfortable with my being here after we… You know.”

“There’s no need to–”

“I know this is not what we do, okay? It’s just– _You_ are usually the one to go to _my_ place, so you already know how to handle all of this, but I like to plan ahead and I forgot to call a cab and now I’m a huge inconvenience and I’m so, so sorry, I’ll leave as soon as I can, if you’ll just let me use your phone to get a cab or I could even take the bus at this point, really, I wouldn’t mind– Oh, crap, taking the bus at this time of the night would be dangerous too, I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore, I’m such a–”

“Lexie.” I raised my voice a little bit, which was effective for catching her attention. She looked at me with those dark, innocent puppy eyes, and I had to fight the urge to pinch her cheeks. “Just stay the night.”

“I can’t, we don’t– I can’t ask for something like this.”

“You’re not, I’m offering. Stay. It’s no big deal.”

“ _Really?_ ” She slightly tilted her head front.

“Yes. It would be good for you, since you have rounds at eight. I live literally right across the street from the hospital.”

“So I’m not an inconvenience?”

“Not at all.”

“Are you sure?”

I chuckled.

“Just get your ass in here.”

 

-x-

 

“Okay, Derek. This is a good one. What’s the difference between peanut butter and jam?” I heard Mark Sloan ask my brother by the nurse’s station near the cafeteria.

“Don’t you dare finish.” I said, chuckling softly as I approached them. “It’s a _terrible_ one.”

“How come do you seem to know all of my dirty jokes, Little Shepherd?” Mark greeted me with a smile. “You’re, like, a baby.”

“Well, I _did_ grow up around you.” I glanced at Derek, who wasn’t even paying attention to what Sloan and I were saying due to a chart he had his nose up in. “And enough with calling me a baby. I’m twenty-six.”

“Oh, sorry. Guess that makes you a toddler, then.”

“Screw you, Mark.”

He laughed joyfully.

“So how’s your second year been going? I feel like I haven’t talked to you in ages. Whoever sets up the residents’ schedules in this hospital needs to start making a better job. Karev’s been on my service for over a week now, I’m done with him.” Mark scratched his jaw. “Why aren’t _you_ ever on my service? Those other residents are morons.”

“I’ve been jumping between peds, trauma and even cardio once in the past few weeks. And they’re not morons.”

“But they’re not you. All Karev does is kiss ass, Yang doesn’t care about plastics, Stevens is too bubbly, O’Malley is a dork and Derek won’t let me tell dirty jokes around Grey. But _you_ are like family, Little Shepherd. You’re Derek’s little sister, and I can tell as many dirty jokes as I want near you because you just go along with them.”

“I don’t know, I guess I’m just not into plastics. And I’ve already told you not to call me Little Shepherd.”

“Come on! How can you not be into plastics and be into trauma? I do God’s work, Vicki. Take ugly damaged faces and turn them into fricking masterpieces.”

“I’m sorry if I think that _actually_ saving lives is better than giving women bigger boobs.”

“Oh, no, you didn’t just– Okay, you’re on my service tomorrow. I’m calling it. You’ll see that plastic surgery is about _way_ more than just giving women bigger boobs.”

My pager went off, and I looked at Mark with an “I have to go” look.

“Don’t forget it, Shepherd. On my service tomorrow!”

“Okay, Sloan, okay.” I giggled. Mark’s always been like family to me, a big brother from another mother. “Nice to see you too, Derek.” I mocked my actual brother, who hadn’t even lifted his head up to look at me and say hello.

“Yeah, Vicki, that’s great.” He said, clearly not able to care less about what I had to say.

I shrugged and started making my usual way down to the emergency room. I walked to the elevator, pressed the button and waited for a few seconds until it got to my floor.

Lexie Grey was all alone inside of it, looking _very_ bothered by something.

“Good morning, Dr. Grey.” I greeted her politely and entered the elevator.

“Hello, Dr. Shepherd.” She answered, crossing her arms over her chest.

The elevator doors closed and she sighed loudly, relaxing her shoulders.

“Okay, spit it.” I turned my head to face her. “What’s up?”

“It’s Yang. She couldn’t care less about us, interns. She just refuses to teach, and puts her own education before ours.”

“What did you expect? It’s _Cristina_.”

“You were lucky. Your resident was Bailey. God, I wish my resident was Bailey.” She pressed her hand into a fist, and sighed again. “I know Cristina’s my sister’s best friend and your roommate and all, but she’s neglectful, inconsiderate and unfair. And, just… Mean.”

“I’m sorry. Having a bad day?”

“It’s been incredibly sucky so far.” She pouted, and I smiled discreetly to the sight of that.

I took a few steps to get closer to her, and she noticed right where I was going, because her lips curved up into a flirty smile. I pressed her against the wall with my body, and my lips met hers in a not even remotely slow kiss. My hands went straight to her hips, while hers cupped my face and eventually pulled on my hair. Her soft tongue explored my mouth, and she moved her fingers down to my lab coat’s collar to try and take it off.

“Sorry, Little Grey.” I muttered, just after taking my lips off of hers. “Can’t now, Hunt needs me in the pit.”

“You can’t just tease me and then not finish like this.”

I smirked.

“We’ll carry on later.”

Mischievousness and teasing was also happening a lot between Lexie and me. It was particularly fun to see the look in her eyes whenever I teased, some sort of desperation mixed with frustration and desire. I enjoyed leaving her like that.

Especially because she always pulled me inside of an on-call room without notice the days I did that.

I pulled away from her since the elevator doors were about to open, and smiled politely when they did.

“Dr. Grey.” I greeted her again, walking out of the elevator.

“Dr. Shepherd.” She murmured, and walked past me.

Before she could turn and disappear into one of the hallways, she looked straight at me and chuckled softly.

Having her as a friend with benefits was surely curious.

I found myself enjoying it more and more every day.

I pushed the doors to the ER, making my way inside of there and finding it extremely chaotic. Interns who had no idea of what they were doing received judgmental looks from Izzie and Alex, who seemed to be having fun at how disoriented they looked. Dr. Bailey – being Dr. Bailey – took a step in on most of the cases, in attempts to _not_ let the interns kill the patients. Callie looked at a few radiographies inside of a trauma room, and nurse Olivia tried to soothe a crying child with a bleeding forehead who waited for a consult while lying on a gurney. Owen ran all over the place wearing an untied trauma gown, giving orders and writing something on a form attached to his clipboard. I approached him, trying to understand exactly where I was supposed to be.

“Oh, Shepherd, good you’re here.” He said before I could even ask what was happening. “There’s been a terrible crash a few blocks from here. Apparently it was induced by road rage. A cab driver and a guy in a SUV had a fight or whatever, and they crashed, but it was so ugly that four other cars got piled-up too. Some of them hit pedestrians, and a school bus tried not to get in the crash, but it was too late, so it collided into a light pole. There are more ambulances on their way here.”

“You want me to go to the platform?” I asked, waiting for an approval.

“No, thanks, I’ve got the incoming cases. It’s just– It’s a mess here, so just go take care of who we already have.” He stood up straight, and ran his eyes over the emergency room. “The patient in bed three has been there for a while. She was in the back of the cab, has a cut on her cheek and you should get a full examination. Make sure to check on bed four if bed three’s not surgical, and if you see any free residents on your way to CT or MRI or radiology or literally wherever, tell them to come running down here stat. This is an all hands on deck situation.”

“Got it, Dr. Hunt.” He handed me the file for the patient in bed three, which had no information whatsoever. “There’s nothing written down here.”

“The paramedics are going back and forth to take care of all the victims, and today they’re short-staffed. There’s just no time for bureaucracy. You fill the charts up.” Someone yelled Hunt’s name, and he looked up. “Ooh, I should go check that. _You_ put on a gown and go check on bed three. Chop-chop.”

I nodded, but then stopped what I was doing to look at the ginger man while I clenched my forehead.

“Did you just say _chop-chop,_ Dr. Hunt?”

“I… Did.” He blinked twice, shaking his head. “Just pretend I never did. Now get to work.”

I chuckled slightly, then walked to the trauma gown dispenser and pulled a yellow gown out of there. While the patient’s chart rested on top of the dispenser, I took off my lab coat and handed it to an intern – that thin clumsy one who was friends with Lexie –, who said he’d take it to my cubby. I laced up the trauma gown, placed a stethoscope around my neck, then picked up the chart back again and started making my way to bed three.

The blue curtains around the bed space were closed, so I slid them open.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Shepherd, I’m so sorry you had to wait that long for a consult and– Morgan?”

I caught my breath.

It was her. It was _actually_ her.

She looked so pretty, even with a bloody cheek and her strawberry blonde hair all messed up. I took a split second to just lay eyes on her, until I realized what was happening.

Morgan was in the ER and had been on a car wreck.

A _bad_ car wreck.

“And _that’s_ why I didn’t want to come to Seattle Grace in the first place.” My ex said bitterly. Oh, great. Nothing had changed. “I told the paramedics I was fine but they insisted to bring everyone to check internal injuries. And they couldn’t take me somewhere else.”

I picked up the stethoscope and got closer to her. I _was_ going to examine her, whether she wanted it or not. It was protocol, I was a doctor, and she’d been in a car crash.

I tried not to look worried.

“Before I stitch up that cut, I need you to lean forward and take deep breaths as I say, please.”

“Cut the crap.” Always so subtle. “I’m fine, just discharge me or whatever.”

“Plase, lean forward.”

I loved how cool I could act sometimes. Truth is I was feeling all kinds of rush since I’d first seen her sitting on that hospital bed.

I thought I’d be mad at her if we ever crossed paths on the street again. It’s how I react – I get pissed off. But I wasn’t anywhere near being pissed off (even though I thought it would eventually kick in and I’d feel the anger then).

I was concerned. What if she had a brain bleed, or an aneurysm? What if she had an internal hemorrhage? What if she had a damn hemothorax?

“Didn’t you hear me the first time? Let me go.”

“I can’t. You’re a patient, I’m supposed to take care of you.” My voice was surprisingly still, just in the right tone – not too low, not too loud –, like I was the calmest person in the world.

“Well, I don’t need you to.”

“It’s protocol. Just lean forward, _please_.”

“Get me another doctor, then.”

I sighed.

“The pit is a mess today because of the pile-up, and Dr. Hunt is bending over backwards to make this work. It could take _hours_ for another doctor to come check on you. So let me. Let’s make this easy for the both of us.”

“I don’t mind waiting. I’ll wait as long as I have to.”

“Damn it, Morgan, stop being so stubborn!” I raised my voice a little bit, but then took a deep breath and went back to acting calm. “Let me examine you so we can see if there’s anything wrong. Please. It was an ugly accident for what I heard, and I’m worried about you.”

“You’re _worried_ about me?” She said disdainfully. I nodded smoothly and held the stethoscope’s chestpiece up, hoping she would give in. “It’s hard for me to believe this, but okay. I’ll let you examine me. Just so I know I’m not going to die.”

“Fair enough.” I put the stethoscope’s ear plugs on and walked two steps closer to the bed. “Can you lean forward, please?”

She did, and pressed the chestpiece to her back, over her thick gray sweater.

“This is not working.” I muttered, fearing the response to what I’d do next.

My hand slid underneath her sweater, and I felt her flinch – probably for the cold metal pressed against her bare skin (but I like to think it was my touch) – and back away almost instantly.

“Watch it.”

“You _have_ to let me, Morgan. It’s the only way to check if you’re alright.”

“Don’t you _dare_ think this is me forgiving you.”

 She could hold a grudge.

“I won’t. I’m just your doctor right now. How do you feel?”

She leaned forward again, and I pressed the chestpiece against her back. Her skin was hot, clearly she had a fever.

“A little sick. Like I want to throw up. The open wound in my forehead isn’t helping, and neither is your being my doctor.”

“I’ll stitch up that cut on your cheek, but we have priorities. You’re very hot.”

“Okay, that’s it!” She prepared for getting out of the bed, but I quickly explained myself.

“Hot as in you’re burning in fever! Do you feel any pain?”

Morgan chewed on the inside of her cheek.

“Yeah. In my stomach, and a little in the shoulder.”

“How’s that stomach pain? On a scale of one to ten?”

“I’d say seven and a half.”

Oh, no.

I hoped it wasn’t what I was thinking, because those were one of the main causes of death by blunt abdominal traumas.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I was kind of thrown before. Still am, by the way. So, why are you making that face?”

“I’m not making a face, just… Take your sweater off.”

“Oh, _come on_!” She howled. “This is too much.”

“Please, just do so. I _need_ you to do this.”

“Never in a million years. I can wait for another doctor. I actually saw a pretty hot blonde with a monkey embroidery in her lab coat when I got here, maybe she can take care of me. Really good care…”

“Morgan, will you stop acting like a child and just let me do my job, please? I’m serious about this!”

“Oh, okay, _Dr. Shepherd_. You _always_ want to do your job, right? Guess this is what I should have done when we were dating, get in an accident. That way you’d make me your damn priority.”

“Don’t.” I deepened my voice, desperately hoping she would just give in. I didn’t want to tell her what I was thinking because getting her under stress in that kind of situation could be even more harmful, so I needed to make sure I was right – even though I really hoped I wasn’t. “We’re not doing this right now. Do as I asked, please. _Please._ ”

“No, Vicki, we _are_ doing this right now. You can’t just expect me to be okay with whatever you–” She stopped talking and her eyes grew wide for a half-second, before she fainted.

She actually fainted.

Her face went incredibly pale, and her BP dropped significantly.

Oh, no.

Everything stopped for a moment. My heart raced and, as worried and scared as I was, I needed to get myself together. Morgan needed me to.

I lifted her sweater and pressed her abdomen, finding out that what I feared was actually happening, and it was quite worse than I imagined.

Her abdomen was rigid. Hard as a rock.

How the hell was she talking just a few seconds before that?

 “I NEED SOME HELP OVER HERE!”

Three interns and an intern came running towards bed three. When I looked up, I saw that the interns were that thin white boy who handled my lab coat, Sadie Harris and, well, Lexie Grey.

Morgan woke up suddenly, which got the interns a little scared. She quickly started screaming in agonizing pain, my head spinning around, her face as white as paper.

 Everything just felt so unreal. I took a deep breath and got myself together, back to reality.

I turned over to look at Nathan, the nurse.

“Nathan, you page Dr. Webber 911 _right now_. Harris, let OR 2 know I’m coming, ask the scrub nurses to prep for a splenic rupture procedure. Shaggy, go look for Dr. Webber just in case he doesn’t see Nathan’s page. Grey, you’re helping me take her up to the OR. _Now!_ ”

All of them started running around to do what I’d asked, except for Lexie, who stayed to help me. I ran to the side of Morgan’s bed and started pushing it, while Lexie took care of the backside without even asking anything, because she saw how urgent it was. We started running around the hospital, and, when we got to the elevator, my ex-girlfriend reached out for my hand and gripped it tightly, looking at me with terrified eyes.

“Hey.” I looked right into those scared green eyes. “You don’t have to be afraid, okay? Dr. Webber is an outstanding surgeon. Besides, I’ll be next to you the whole time. I’ll take care of you. I will _not_ leave your side.”

“V-Vicki, I do–I don’t k-know–” She tried to say in between sighs and frightened shivers.

“Shh.” I caressed her cheek – the good one – tenderly, attempting to make her calm down. “Don’t say anything. You _do not_ have to be scared. I’ll be there, okay? I will. Just… Keep holding my hand, okay, Morgs? I’ll be right beside you.”

She nodded desperately, and I heard Lexie gag.

“Wait, is she… Are you– Is this…?” She tried to make a sentence, but stopped talking when she noticed my “please be quiet” look.

The elevator doors opened and we ran towards the OR. Once we got there, the staff helped Lexie and I put Morgan on the operating table, and I held her hand until the anesthesiologist put her under anesthesia. Then, I ran to the scrub room and the intern followed me, babbling some incoherent words while I put my scrub cap on.

“ _You’re scrubbing in?_ ” She finally asked.

“Yes.”

“You know it’s against the rules, right? Webber won’t let you.”

“Screw Webber. I _am_ scrubbing in, he has to let me.” I started scrubbing, while Lexie’s perplexed eyes faced me.

“You can’t, Vicki. I know you’re pretty thrown right now but just let someone else handle it.”

“ _Let someone else handle it?_ It’s not sutures we’re doing here. It’s a fricking splenic rupture and God knows what else! On _Morgan_! How could you even say something like that?”

“Listen, you are _not_ on your best judgement right now. It’s not safe.”

“I can’t just do _nothing_.”

“You sent her up here. That _is_ something.”

“Maybe I sent her up here too late.”

“What even happened?”

“A car crash. I should’ve checked on her stomach before, I _should have!_ I was just so astonished to actually _see her_ , that I– I didn’t–”

“This is _not_ on you, Vicki. Okay? It is _not_ your fault. You were just about to check her abdomen.”

“Well, look where _just about_ got me. Her organs are all messed up while she lies unconscious on an operating table. I’m– I don’t know what to do. Where the _hell_ is Webber?”

Chief Webber walked into the scrub room just as soon as I said that.

“What’s the emergency?” He asked, while finishing lacing up his navy floral-print scrub cap.

“Twenty-six year old female with a ruptured spleen and maybe something else, we don’t know yet what that something else is, but it was too late to get a CT or an MRI so we brought her up here right away.” I tried to keep my voice from failing, but that didn’t seem to work out. “She complained of abdominal and shoulder pain, and was also pale and kind of light-headed, that’s how I know it’s splenic. But her abdomen, sir… Hard as a rock. Maybe something happened to the tissue, but I can’t be sure like this.”

Webber started scrubbing.

“And why do you sound so nervous, Shepherd?”

“It’s just– It seems like a very complex procedure, sir.” I lied, pretty aware that he would _not_ let me anywhere near that OR if she knew who was on the table.

Lexie looked at me like she wasn’t surprised for my lying.

“Care to scrub in, Shepherd? I see you’ve prepared already.”

I arched my lips.

“Absolutely.”

“ _No_.” Little Grey interfered, her voice a little louder than the tone I was used to. “You can’t let her, sir.”

I involuntarily turned my head over to Lexie, while raising my recently scrubbed forearms so I wouldn’t touch anything.

“ _Excuse me?_ ” I raised an eyebrow, facing her.

She looked upset, like she’d done something she wished she hadn’t.  But she _had_.

“I’m sorry, Vicki, but it’s the right thing to do. You’ll thank me later.”

“What’s going on?” Webber questioned.

“The girl on the table is Vicki’s, um– I mean, she’s Dr. Shepherd’s… She’s someone Dr. Shepherd is very fond of.”

“So you _know_ the patient, Dr. Shepherd?” The Chief looked at me, expecting an answer.

I could lie, but I didn’t. I don’t know why. The truth just came out.

“Yes, but I was her doctor on the ER and–”

He finished scrubbing.

“Then you’re off the case.”

“Sir, come on, you can’t–”

“Policy, Vicki. I’m sorry.” He justified. “It’s for the patient’s and your own sake.”

“You don’t know what’s best for–”

“Don’t even bother finishing that sentence, because I _do_ know what’s best for the patient. I’m the chief of surgery.”

“You’re _really_ not letting me in?”

“I can’t, Shepherd, and you’re aware of this.”

I took a deep breath, trying to fight back the tears. I’d become pretty good at it.

“Take good care of her. And keep me updated. Be sure to check everything before you close up so you don’t end up leaving a cloth or a surgical tool inside of her body. Double check the sutures to guarantee that clots won’t be formed. Also, send me to her room before she wakes up, I said I’d be there.”

“Absolutely.” He nodded smoothly, understandingly. “I’ll get in now. Grey,” he looked at Lexie “keep an eye on her.”

“I will.”

I was just about to say that I didn’t need anyone keeping an eye on me – I was a grownup, after all –, and I especially did not need _Lexie Grey_ to be the one watching over me, but I wasn’t holding the Chief there any longer. He had to operate on Morgan. He had to save her life.

So he entered the OR. I took my cap off and walked out of the scrub room, Lexie’s light steps behind me echoing through my ears.

“Vicki, I’m so sorry that–”

“Don’t.” I lifted one hand to keep her from saying anything else. I was mad at her from babbling everything out for Webber, and her talking wasn’t much help. “You should go back to work, Dr. Grey.”

“I _am_ working. Keeping an eye on you, Chief’s orders.” She placed one hand on my shoulder, and I reluctantly turned around to face her. “How are you?”

“Cut the crap, okay? I don’t need to be watched over. Just go back to practicing medicine.”

“I’m worried about you, so no. And I couldn’t even practice medicine if I wanted to, because, as you know, Dr. Yang refuses to let me anywhere near anything medical. I haven’t touched a damn needle in two days.”

“Then do charting. Run labs. Go pick up lattes for the nurses to get some social credit. I’m not a baby, and you’re not a babysitter.”

She tilted her head left a little bit, flashing me a pitiful look.

“You can’t be mad at me for holding you out of the OR, you know that?”

I tried not to talk about it, because I really _didn’t_ want to say anything stupid while I was angry. I had enough problems at the moment.

But, as usual, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

“I _had it_. I was there. I was _right freaking there_. With Morgan, aware of Dr. Webber’s every move. And you go and take that away from me. So yeah, I surely _can_ be mad at you.”

“It’s for you own good, Vicki. It’s for Morgan’s own good. You wouldn’t be able to think straight, and could’ve made a mistake.”

“Don’t give me that ‘for my own good’ crap. I was _right there_.”

“I understand that you’re mad, but you’ll see that I’m right.” She rested one hand on my shoulder, and looked into my eyes in some sort of attempt to soothe me. “So you can stay angry, or you can tell me how you feel. Because I will _not_ leave your side.”

I opened my mouth, ready to tell her once again to just go back to work, but then I didn’t. I looked into her eyes too. They were right there, in front of me. She nodded smoothly, which almost tore down the walls I’d built around me. Almost.

“I’m terrified.” I confessed, choosing to take control over my anger. Even though all I wanted was to be next to Morgan, Lexie _was indeed_ just looking out for me. I decided to let the intern know what I was thinking, despite the fact that saying it out loud was absolutely frightening. “What if she…” I gulped, feeling my chin start to tremble, fighting to keep the tears from falling down my eyes. “What if she dies?”

“Let’s not think about that.” She noticed my potential crying face, and quickly opened her arms to hold me. “Hey, come here.”

She was being so soft. I could see the mix of pity and gloom on her face. And she was going to hold me in front of everyone. As if we were somehow close. As if we meant something to each other. As if there was nothing wrong with _everybody_ on that floor seeing us.

But I stopped her.

“No.” I pressed my eyelids together, taking one step back so she wouldn’t wrap her arms around my body. “Don’t hug me. If you do, I’m going to really start crying, and I can’t cry. I have to keep it together. Be strong for Morgan.”

“Crying is not a sign of weakness. It just means that you care about her. It’s okay to cry.”

“I just– I can’t. Seriously.” I didn’t care how guarded I sounded. Truth is I hated crying in front of people and, once I started, it took a while to stop.

“Okay.” Lexie chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Do you want to eat something, then? It helps me calm down whenever I’m anxious about something, and I don’t remember seeing you grab anything to eat this morning.”

Her voice was low enough so no one walking by would listen to us, so I didn’t worry about anyone knowing she’d spent the night in my apartment.

“I don’t know.” My stomach actually did ache a little, probably because of the combination of stress and hunger. “Maybe I should.”

“So let’s go to the cafeteria. Okay?”

“Mm-hmm.” I murmured, following her as she started walking.

We got to the cafeteria after a couple of minutes, and Lexie told me to sit down while she grabbed a few things for me. I said it wasn’t necessary, but she insisted that getting in line would only get me more stressed, so I decided to agree with her.

While she put a variety of foods on my tray, Amelia and Mark entered the cafeteria looking preoccupied. Their eyes fell straight on me, and they walked long steps to my table, each sitting on one of the empty chairs next to mine.

“We heard that Morgan’s here.” Sloan was the first one to talk, his deep voice was softer and he looked at me tenderly, just like an older brother would. Just like Derek did. “I just came back from suturing her cheek in the OR. Shouldn’t leave any scar.”

“How are you holding up?” Amelia caressed my shoulder, her big blue eyes facing me carefully. “Meredith told me she’s in surgery.”

“Meredith knows?” I muttered.

“Everyone does. Derek’s going to come see you as soon as he gets out of surgery. Your resident friends told us to let them know when we found you, and Torres said she’ll come see you too once she’s done with a trauma that just came in.” Mark clarified. “But you didn’t answer to your sister’s question. How are you?”

“I’ve been better. Webber said he would get someone to keep me updated, but no one’s shown up yet. I’m restless, I guess. Scared.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing no one has come to fill you in yet. Bad news travel fast.” Amy reassured, turning her head over to face something. “Meredith’s here.”

Soon enough, the older Grey got near the table, and took a seat next to me, Mark and Amelia. She looked concernedly at me, and I noticed how nice everybody was being. Of course, my ex – who I still loved – was having risky surgery, but everyone treated me like a porcelain doll that might break at any sort of rougher touch. I was grateful for having that many people care about me.

“Hey,” Mer’s voice was, just like everyone else’s, soft “how’s it going?”

“Waiting for an update.” Mark answered in my behalf – not that I needed him too, but I appreciated the gesture. I didn’t feel like talking about what was happening. “Hoping for the best.”

Just after he said that, Lexie approached the table with a full tray. Fruits, pie, cookies, a bottle of cranberry juice and a very tasty-looking BLT sandwich.

“Before you say anything, you don’t have to eat _all_ of this.” She didn’t seem to care about the other people sitting around the table. “But I _will_ make sure you at least eat the piece of pie and the sandwich. And, of course, drink the cranberry juice. We don’t want you to dehydrate.”

I cleared my throat. She was being so intimate, saying “we” instead of “I”, thoughtfully picking out a wholesome meal for me and not giving a damn about my friends’ looks at her.

“Lexie?” Meredith was the first one to say anything, as soon as her sister placed the tray on the table and took a seat next to Amelia.

“Yeah?” Little Grey picked up a cookie, giving it a small bite, and looked at the blonde like she couldn’t see what was wrong in the situation.

“Since when do you pick up lunch for Vicki?”

Lexie didn’t seem to falter, which was odd – usually, if I did so much as tease her about something that had happened weeks before, she would blush and try to talk it off. Maybe I was the paranoid one then. Sleeping with an intern was already stressful enough – even though her hands were blissful and her tongue was velvet soft –, not because of _the_ intern in question, she actually helped me take some of the edge off, but because of the context. She was an intern, I was a resident. She was my friend’s little sister. She was straight. So, seeing Lexie and talking to Lexie and simply being in the same place as Lexie while around other people was quite hard. I’d learned that I actually liked spending time with her, she was _indeed_ a lot more than the great sex, but interacting with her publically made me try so hard not to give her the “I’ve seen you naked” look, or to hold back internal jokes we had about a few sex injuries we’d gotten in the tight on-call room bunkbeds (I couldn’t sit straight for four days).

Lexie was calm, though.

“Meredith, can you please not be so rude? She’s going through a lot right now. I’m trying to be nice.”

“That’s reasonable.” The blonde resident muttered, and turned her head to look at me. “I’m sure we’ll get good news any minute now.”

“I hope so.” I couldn’t stop tapping my fingers on the table, so Amelia held my hand to make me quit it.

“Hey,” she said “Little Grey’s right. You should eat a little. And drink up the cranberry juice, come on, at least a few sips. It’s your favorite.”

I reached out to grab the small bottle, but had no will to actually lift it up to my lips. So I put it back on the table.

“Vicki. Eat up.” Mark muttered. “You really shouldn’t be empty-stomached right now.”

“I think I lost my appetite.”

Lexie looked concernedly at me.

“You’re under a lot of stress. It’s important that you ingest some sugar to keep your blood sugar steady and some salt to keep your BP up. Come on, just the sandwich and the cranberry juice. You said you have to be strong, remember? So keep up. Please.”

“I don’t think it’s necessary–”

“Vicki.” She looked at me and held the bottle up, pushing it my direction.

I clenched my jaw. Even though I really didn’t feel like eating, I hated being everyone’s object of worry. And Lexie had gotten all kinds of foods for me. Also, they were right.

“Half the sandwich.”

“Half the sandwich and the piece of pie.” Little Grey tried to negotiate.

“Is it chocolate-flavored?”

“Chocolate and hazelnut.”

“Then deal. The one filled with whipped cream is sickening.”

Meredith watched everything with a weird look on her face, while Amelia’s jaw almost dropped.

“How?”

“How what?” Lexie muttered, without taking her eyes off of me to make sure I was eating. I guess I understood the concern; we’d been getting closer as friends. Also, she _was_ a doctor, and worrying about people’s health in general is just something doctors do.

I took a bite of the BLT, which actually tasted very good. I couldn’t help but feel slightly sick, though, because all that nervousness made me feel like my stomach was tossing and turning inside of me. But it sure was better than being empty-stomached and nervous and, for that, contracting bad stomach pains or even low BP and blood sugar.

“How did you get her to change her mind? She’s so damn stubborn. Not even mom could get her to do something she said she wouldn’t do when she was a kid.”

Lexie smiled briefly, and bit her lower lip.

“I’m eating,” I said between one bite and the other “because I know it’s best for me.”

“Okay.” My sister didn’t protest, and I opened the bottle of juice.

That’s when I spotted an intern walking into the cafeteria, his eyes aiming straight for me. It was that friend of Lexie’s, the skinny and very pale one. He walked over to my table, a scrub cap tied around his head, his hands shaking nervously.

“Shaggy?” I murmured, without really remembering his name. I could hear Mark cover up a laugh.

“My name’s Steve, Dr. Shepherd, and I, uh… Dr. Webber sent me here to update you.”

My body went cold.

“Vicki, calm down. Breathe, okay?” Amelia muttered, while Meredith gently held my hand to try and keep me steady.

“Spit it. Whatever it is that you have to say, just say it.” I raised my voice a little, trying to portray a little bit of fake confidence and think optimistically, even though I was scared out of my mind.

“As you said, she had a ruptured spleen, and it was incredibly damaged. We don’t know how she was awake and talking before she passed out. Dr. Webber had to remove her spleen. However, there was a lot of sensibility to the tissue, and… There were some complications.”

He stopped.

“Don’t stop talking, Shaggy, keep going.” I said, desperately trying to cling to any last bit of hope I had.

“The chief, he– He let me handle the scalpel for a few minutes and… I damaged the tissue. I caused peritonitis.”

Sometimes your feelings can consume you. They can take over your brain and make you feel… Absent. Like everything’s falling apart and you’re staying behind. Like you’re not sure whether this, your reality, is truly happening or not. Like you might fall, and not have the strength to get back up.

Sometimes you feel all of that, but you won’t let your body show.

“Webber did _what_? _You_ did _what_?” I stood up, not even thinking straight anymore.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down! She’s fine for now!”

“Shaggy, you better tell me what the hell you were– What?”

“The chief could repair it, but the procedure was rough. We took her up to the ICU just to keep a close eye. She should wake up in a few hours.”

And sometimes you just forget all your problems. You breathe out, relieved for being alive, grateful for everything you have. Guilty for being so selfish before. How could you have not seen this? How could you have been so self-centered to even appreciate what and who’s around you?

 “In which room is she now?”

“She’s in 3102. You can see her if you like.”


	6. Cranberry juice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vicki talks to Morgan about their past. Arizona is pretty sure she knows something about a certain resident and an intern. Lexie, as usual, just wants to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyyy! i'm sorry it took me so long to post :( the past month has been insane!  
> i'm here now, though!  
> this chapter is honestly my favorite one so far, lexie is just overall adorable and, god, i miss her so much on grey's. such a precious bean.  
> my twitter is @haughtdamnit, i'll follow everyone back! also, feel free to talk to me if you want to :))
> 
> enjoy!

Impatience: the tendency to be impatient; irritability or restlessness.

Sometimes impatience can be defined as anxiety. Normal anxiety is a part of the body’s natural defense system, as an alert to threat that is unknown, vague, or comes from our own internal fears. While anxious, feelings can range from just a sense of worry to physical sensations. Basically, the brain perceives whatever threat causes the sentiment of edginess and alerts the body, causing it to react with corporal and emotional symptoms, such as dizziness, muscle tension, sleeplessness, dry mouth, racing heartbeat, trembling, difficulty concentrating and fast breathing.

And that’s how I felt: impatient. I’d been sitting next to Morgan’s bed for about two hours, just me and her in that morbid room with pastel walls, where she slept soundly still under the effect of the anesthesia. Her face was so pale. Her whole physiognomy resembled weakness and frailness, machines were connected to her arms, chest and face and she was wearing a particularly creased hospital gown, while exceedingly discreet dark rings started to appear under her eyes.

But, damn it, she still looked stunning. Her ribcage went up and down beautifully from her weary breathing, and her lips were very inconspicuously parted in a hypnotizing way. She was, in fact, breathtaking.

My thumb slid gently through the back of her left hand as I held onto it insecurely, all the feelings I’d started to stop having suddenly coming back to punch me on the face.

She could have _died_. But she didn’t.

Morgan’s fingers moved slowly, as I heard her groan somnolently. She woke up. She _actually_ woke up. My heart began to race even faster, and I looked up into her eyes. Her open eyes. The shiny green orbs that I’d gotten so used to stare at.

“What is…Vicki?” My ex-girlfriend snored, lazily looking up at me. “What’s going on?”

I gulped.

“You’re at Seattle Grace Hospital, you’ve been in a car accident. You’re okay now.”

“Oh, right. That asshole cab driver who desperately wanted to pick a fight with that soccer mom in the SUV.” She lifted her hand up to scratch her eye, but stopped to look at the machines hooked to her. Then, her expression became panicky, but slowly softened as she looked back at me. “I passed out, and you took me to surgery. You took care of me like you promised. You’re beside me.”

“Actually, Dr. Webber did most of the job. He didn’t let me get into the OR since we’re, uh… Acquainted, but I came up here as soon as I knew you were out.”

“It’s okay.” She muttered, still weak from the surgery. “So how am I?”

“You came in with a splenic rupture, which Dr. Webber couldn’t repair since your spleen had been too injured in the crash, so he had to remove the organ. An intern screwed up a little, but they managed to fix it just fine. And, you remember Mark?” She nodded. I’d introduced her to Mark on our first week as an actual couple. “He stitched up your cheek, and said it shouldn’t leave any scars.”

“Awesome.” Morgan smiled gracefully, but her demeanor quickly became confused again. “Wait, I don’t have a spleen anymore? What the hell?”

“You don’t. But don’t panic, you can live a normal life without it.” She still looked like there was a huge question mark on her face, so I decided to explain briefly how things worked. “The spleen helps filter the blood and acts as some sort of reservoir for immune cells, which are called monocytes, yeah? The monocytes are important in the healing of the body after trauma. So, your spleen could really come in handy in case you have a heart attack, a wound with excessive bleeding or, let’s say, an infection. But you _can_ live without it. You just might be more prone to certain types of infections and, well, it might suck a little since you may need yearly vaccines and prophylactic antibiotics to prevent bacterial infections, but it _is_ better than being dead.”

“Nerd.” She teased, holding a smile. “Thank you for being so kind, by the way. I don’t know if I would.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, I did all that ‘I don’t ever want to see you again and don’t call me’ thing. And I called you some pretty fucked up stuff. I’d be mad if I were you.”

“Well, I took an oath. It’s not like I can neglect you.” I joked, letting out a subtle nasal laughter. “Of course I’m being kind. I worry about you. As scary as it was to have you on an operating table, I’d take care of you again if it came to it. As many times as I had to.”

“But I was overly mean.”

“Shit happens. You get over shit. It’s life.” I took a deep breath, noticing that my hand was still on hers. I didn’t remove it. “You know, I’m not mad at you for breaking up with me. It’s your right and all, but it’s not entirely on you. Looking back, I kind of was a shitty girlfriend, because this, working in a hospital, the crazy hours… It’s my reality, not yours. You’re a personal trainer. It’s not like I canceled date after date and even forgot some on purpose, it gets chaotic in here sometimes, but it’s _not_ your reality. I didn’t try hard enough, and I always pinned it on you. Thought you weren’t sufficiently understanding, or that you didn’t love me enough to try. I should’ve made a bigger effort and, for that, I’m sorry. But don’t think even for a slight second that I didn’t love you. Because I did. And I’m still learning not to.”

She stood in silence, her grip getting somewhat tighter around my hand.

“I loved you, too. Deeply.” Morgan finally said, her hoarse voice sent shivers all through my spine. “But I’d had enough, so I was unnecessarily mean. I said some pretty bad stuff. I called you a fucking sociopath. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Another deep breath. Thirty awkward seconds of pure silence, her hand gently loosening the grip. “I should probably head back to work now. Let you get some rest. I’ll be back later with some information about a possible discharge date.”

“Sure.” Her voice was so, so low, as deep as the Pacific Ocean, I thought. “Thanks again.”

“Anytime.”

 

-x-

 

Dr. Webber told me to go home when he saw me walking around the hospital after I left Morgan’s room. Instead, I was sitting on a gurney in one of the many hallways in the fifth floor, my arms wrapped around my bent knees. I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t know why – after having that talk with Morgan and finally getting some sort of closure, I felt like I could really move on. It felt good – but not that good. Like I said, I was still learning not to love her.

Nevertheless, I didn’t know why I didn’t want to go home. Something was missing, but I had no idea what it was.

“How do you feel?” I heard Lexie’s voice as she approached me, sitting next to me, and somehow that calmed me down.

I’d never admit, by then, that when the intern looked at me with those bottomless dark eyes, I felt like I knew what was missing.

“I’m not sure.”

“Well… Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Uh… Aren’t you going to go home?”

“Don’t feel like it.”

Lexie stood quiet for a second, but, being Lexie, she just had to keep talking.

“Was she nice? Or was she mean, like before?”

“She was lovely. We talked, she apologized, I apologized… We got closure.”

“Oh, that’s amazing, Vicki.” She smiled briefly. “And, oh– I’m sorry for asking. You said you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Yeah, it’s okay.” I looked down, noticing the intern was bearing something in one of her hands. “What do you have there?”

“Oh! I almost forgot.” Grey lifted her hand up, revealing a bottle of cranberry juice. “You didn’t even take a sip of your cranberry juice earlier today, so I brought it. Amelia said it was your favorite, and I thought you could use it… Don’t worry, it’s not the same bottle, I just got another one in the cafeteria, so it’s still pretty cold.”

I failed to hold a smile, while chewing on the inside of my cheek. That was so caring. As if she genuinely gave a damn.

“I shouldn’t have brought it? Oh, damn it, your ex-girlfriend’s just been in a terrible accident, you probably want to be alone. And here I am, bugging you with stupid juice. You know what? I should leave you alone. Yeah, right. I’ll go now.”

She started to get up, but I gently grabbed her arm, stopping her from walking away.

“You’re a sweetheart, Lexie.”

“What?”

“I appreciate the gesture. It’s very kind and thoughtful of you.” I picked up the bottle of juice, giving it a small sip. “And you don’t have to go. You can sit with me if you want to.”

She bit back a smile, her teeth sinking in her lower lip.

“Are you sure? I mean, it’s been a hard day for you. I’ll go get Amelia, or my sister. Maybe I’ll get Derek, Callie, Cristina or Sloan. Whoever you want me to get. You probably want to be with someone you like.”

“That’s nonsense. What makes you think I don’t enjoy your company?”

“I’m an intern.”

“You are. But you’re not like the other interns. You’re actually nice and I actually like spending time with you.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Just sit back down, Lexie.” I chuckled, and then took another sip of juice.

She did what I said, and kept quiet for a few seconds. I enjoyed the silence, it was like the other day in the stairwell. But of course she had to speak again.

I found myself thinking that the sound of her voice was better than the silence I was used to.

“So you think I’m a sweetheart?” She giggled.

“Shut up, Little Grey.”

“And I’m not like the other interns?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“I didn’t. You did!” She laughed soundly, and took the bottle of juice from me, sipping it.

“Hey, you drank my juice!”

“The juice _I brought_ you, so thoughtful and kindly.”

“Oh, so you’re going to hold everything I say against me? Okay. That’s why I don’t open up to people.”

She stopped laughing.

“I’m sorry, I was just kidding… Dammit, I’m such a–”

“I was joking, Lexie.” I chuckled again, noticing how worried she’d suddenly gotten. “Calm down.”

“You can’t do this! I worry!”

“Okay, you sweet creature. Now give me my juice back!”

“Sweet creature? Really?” She laughed, handing me back the bottle.

“What? It sounds cool.”

“I think I prefer adorable human. Or smol bean. As in small but spelled S-M-O-L.”

“Smol bean? Who came up with that?”

“It’s a thing. And, quite honestly, it describes me. I’m a total smol bean.”

I laughed, suddenly forgetting the awful day I’d had. She started laughing too, and I focused on the little wrinkles that showed up in the corner of her eyes whenever she smiled, and the shine in her eyes that appeared every single time. She might’ve noticed I was staring, because, in between giggles, she asked:

“What’s up?”

“Nothing.” I smiled subtly. “I just– I kind of want to kiss you right now.”

She stopped laughing, her face turned to me in a serene expression, so calm and still that it could appease the roughest oceans.

“You’re not supposed to want to kiss me. Not like this, out of context.” She muttered. “Especially when your ex is lying in a hospital bed beneath the floor we’re in.”

I bit my tongue.

“So I need a context to want to kiss you?”

“Yeah. You know, I’m pissed because George doesn’t see me, you’re pissed because you miss Morgan, so I drag you into an on-call room and rip off your clothes, and then you get to want to kiss me.”

“You sure as hell know how to kill the mood by bringing up Morgan and George. The ripping off my clothes part _does_ sound interesting, though, I think we should focus on that.”

“Are you _flirting_ with me?” She giggled, sipping the cranberry juice.

“Maybe I was, or maybe I was just trying to charm my way into getting the juice back.”

“Nicely done.” She handed me back the bottle.

“So it actually worked?” I chuckled, giving the juice a quick gulp.

“Not really. I just pitied your awful flirting skills, so letting you have this cranberry marvel seemed like the right thing to do.”

“Awful flirting skills?” I raised an eyebrow, brushing my hair back with my fingers. “Little Grey, those flirting skills have gotten dozens of girls in my bed. Alongside with the incredibly good looking face, amazing Shepherd hair, and hot, toned abs, of course.”

“You can be so cocky sometimes it’s annoying.” Lexie let out a breathy laugh, tapping my shoulder lightly. “You still have no skills, by the way.”

“I’m not cocky, I’m confident. It’s attractive.” I played with the stethoscope in my lab coat’s pocket, letting my back rest against the wall. “And I _do_ have skills! You’ve seen nothing.”

“For what I thought I’d seen… maybe you’re right, I’ve probably seen nothing.” The intern poked me gently.

“You’re such a tease!” I laughed again, and suddenly we were just enjoying each other’s companies in comfortable silence.

I found myself thinking about how nice that felt. It felt right being next to her, talking and laughing, forgetting all around me for just a few minutes. She made me forget the bad things, I’d noticed. Initially because of the sex: she and I would have sex and, just like that, all Morgan-related thoughts would fade away – up until the point when I got up to pick up my clothes from the floor. But, in that moment, I was sitting and laughing next to her while Morgan was just in a hospital bed just a floor beneath me.

Lexie Grey managed to make me forget everything bad around me, and we didn’t even have to take our clothes off for her to do so.

Callie Torres came walking around one of the floor’s corners, already out of her scrubs and alongside with Arizona Robbins. They both made their ways to the gurney in which Lexie and I were sitting on.

“Hi, Little Grey.” The Latina said, and Lexie smiled politely at her. Torres looked at me carefully, as if she was trying to choose the right words. “Hey, Vic… I heard what happened. You must feel awful.”

“She’ll be fine. It’s okay.” I answered, trying to avoid talking about my ex.

“Still, not being over someone and having them almost die right in front of you must have been terrifying.”

“You could say that.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you while you waited for an update. A trauma came in, and the girl’s sacrum was really messed up. I got out of surgery, like, twenty minutes ago.”

“It’s okay…” I looked at Lexie so briefly that probably no one noticed. “I had a lot of support.”

I felt Little Grey’s fingertips brushing against the back of my hand so subtly and serenely that Callie didn’t even realize.

“Anyways… Dr. Webber told me he’d sent you home, yet you’re still here. Come on, let’s get you home. Arizona will be there, too. I’ll bake some brownies, and we can marathon Orange is the New Black and maybe switch to Chicago MED once Cristina gets home since the naked ladies make her uncomfortable.” Callie chuckled, and I smiled greatly.

“Not sure I feel like going home.”

“Morgan will still be here tomorrow morning, Vicki. Right now all you need is to get home and take a shower to wash the hospital environment off of you. It can be degrading sometimes.”

I sighed, looked at Lexie openly this time.

“I should probably go home… Can you please check on Morgan every two hours until you leave and text me if anything goes wrong?”

“Absolutely.” She nodded, looking a bit concerned. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

“Mm-hmm.” I forced a smile, getting off of the gurney and picking up the half bottle of cranberry juice Lexie handed me. Callie and Arizona started to leave and, before I could follow them outside, I looked at the intern when they were already considerably far from us and remembered something I’d been meaning to say. “You’re no longer my babysitter. Morgan’s okay. Get back to work now and _do not_ let Cristina put her education before yours, alright? You’re equally important. She can be threatening and scary, but you’re a human encyclopedia. You’ve got this. Have some fire, stand up for yourself and don’t give a damn what anyone thinks.”

Lexie looked like she was trying to hold back a smile but couldn’t, because the most astounding grin popped out on her face.

“I will.”

I nodded, biting back a smile and jogging to catch up with Callie and Arizona.

-x-

 

“Aw, you’ve got to be kidding me!” Callie said, while bent over in order to pick something up from one of the kitchen cabinets at our apartment.

“What’s wrong, Cal?” Arizona, who was sitting next to me on the couch while we watched Orange is the New Black, lifted her eyes to face her girlfriend over a glass of wine.

“The nuts! The fucking nuts!”

“You’re going to need to be more specific, honey.”

“It was Yang’s turn to go grocery shopping, but she forgot to get some nuts! Damn it, why do we still let Yang shop for groceries?”

“Hey, Torres, you know you can make brownies without nuts, right? It’s nearly the same.” I cleared up, watching Callie almost freak out over not having nuts in the apartment.

“But you _love_ nuts in your brownies, Vicki! Come on! Baking brownies was all about making you feel better.”

“I _will_ feel better with nutless brownies. It’s no problem at all. I mean, it’s not even much different.”

“Oh, come on, once I’ve heard you dissert for, what, fifteen whole minutes? Yeah, fifteen whole minutes on how amazing it feels to eat brownies with nuts in them because the textures are so different and the nuts add crunchy to the mixture and, to quote you, ‘brownies are so much better with nuts in them that I don’t even know why some people bake with no nuts’. So, yeah, nuts would make you feel better.”

“Whoa. You really sound passionate about nuts, Little Shepherd.” Robbins commented.

“I can go to a 7-Eleven store and get it. Yes! They’re open!”

“Callie, there’s really no need to–”

“Shut up, Vicki, I’m going to buy you nuts and I’m going to make you feel better!”

“But I don’t even think that–”

“I’ll bring whipped cream too! Have fun with Arizona and please make her feel welcome in the apartment!”

Just like that, Torres stormed out, shutting the blue door without measuring strength.

And then there were Arizona and I. We weren’t actually close – we didn’t talk about our hopes and dreams or share secrets –, but the weeks I’d been spending in peds were getting us more familiar with each other, so being alone with her wasn’t as uncomfortable as it would be if we were complete strangers.

“I know about you and Lexie Grey.”

I froze. I actually froze. I felt just like I did when I broke my grandmother’s favorite vase when I was seven and pinned it on Lizzie, only to have her, my mother and my aunt Helen find me inside of a closet trying to superglue it back together. I had no idea what to say.

“What are… I’m sorry? I don’t understand.”

“I know we’re not close or anything, but you’ve been spending a lot of time in peds and you’re best friends with my girlfriend and I just had to say it because the thought of you and Little Grey together is somehow weird because I thought she was very much straight but it’s so cute and it makes a lot of sense at the same time so pardon me for just spiting it out like that.”

Wow. She talked fast.

“I still don’t understand.” I lied. “Lexie _is_ straight.” Then I wasn’t sure whether or not I was lying. “You’re probably mistaken.”

“I saw you too leaving an on call room the other day. And, well… I may or may not have heard something about you wanting to kiss her earlier on.”

“ _What?_ ”

“You should really keep it down in the hallways if you don’t want anyone to know.”

“Lexie and I are _not_ a thing. I’m sorry, you may be confused.”

“Come on, Little Shepherd.”

Robbins kept staring at me with those puppy blue eyes, which I didn’t know could be so intimidating. The stressful day I’d had plus that need to tell someone what was happening – you can only keep it to yourself for so long – made me blab it all out.

“I slept with her. Am sleeping with her. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“I mean, I didn’t _want_ to hear anything, but I’m happy for you guys! Asking your current girlfriend to keep an eye on your ex-girlfriend, though? A little inconsiderate.”

“No, Robbins, you didn’t get it. She’s _not_ my girlfriend. We’re just sleeping together, I’m not even sure she’s not straight.”

“Now you’ve lost me.”

I sighed.

“Okay, I’ll tell you, but you can’t tell anyone. Not even Callie.”

“I won’t. I can keep a secret so well.”

“Lexie and I, we… It started the night Morgan and I broke up.”

“So this had been going on for over a _month_?”

“Just… Don’t interrupt. Okay, a few moments before I went home and had the talk with Morgan, Meredith said I could go to her house in case anything went wrong. I said no, and then made my way here and Morgan dumped me right outside of this door, in the hallway.”

“Go on.”

“So I felt like drinking. And talking. And I remembered Meredith’s offer so I texted her at, like, two AM, asking if her offer was still up. She said yes, so I went to her house. She looked like crap, so I thought I’d probably woken her up and offered to leave, but then she went all ‘no, it’s fine’, typical Meredith being a hero for everyone around her and forgetting to look after herself. We sat down and, just when we were about to start talking, her sister came downstairs claiming she couldn’t sleep.”

“And you offered to sleep with her?”

“Robbins, come on, you’ve got to stop interrupting.”

“Sorry, I’ll stop.”

“Well, moving on, Meredith thought it was perfect to let Little Grey talk feelings with me so I’d have someone to talk to and she’d have something to do since sleeping wasn’t an option, and Big Grey went back upstairs to sleep. Turns out Lexie had boy problems, and we ended up drinking a fuck-ton of wine.”

“Boy problems… Oh, I see where this is going.”

“Exactly. We drink and talk about how much the people we love don’t love us back and, suddenly, she’s almost on top of me. I tell her I want to kiss her. She leans in and starts it. Next thing I know, I wake up in her bed completely naked.”

“What happened next?”

“I took off. Avoided her all day at the hospital, but ended up having her father, who wouldn’t stop asking for her, as a patient. She found me at the end of the day while I called Morgan in the ambulance platform and apologized pathetically and pointlessly. Reached me when I was done. Came closer and said all those things about how she wanted to forget about George and being with me made her forget and how we could help each other out on… Forgetting. So we kissed and, when I came to my senses, I was already on top of her in an on-call room bed. We haven’t really stopped since then.”

“So you’re each other’s rebound?”

“She’s not my rebound, and I’m not hers. We don’t do it to feel loved or cared for or whatever crap related to heartbreaks. It’s just… No feelings. That simple.”

“Man, I would’ve never pictured Little Grey to be Little Gay.”

“That’s because she’s _not_ Little Gay. We don’t talk about what she is, there’s really no need to label it, but, for all I know, she’s straight.”

“Kind of impossible. She could be bi, pan, label-free or whatever, but she is _not_ straight.”

“Weren’t you just saying that you wouldn’t have pictured her to like girls?”

“That was until I knew she was actually sleeping with one. _Is_ actually sleeping with one. She’s not straight, Shepherd, she can’t be. Sleeping with you leaves it off limits.” Arizona sipped her wine, running her eyes through the living room as if her mind suddenly went somewhere else. “And about that no feelings thing…”

“What about it?” I raised an eyebrow, finally giving in and pausing Orange is the New Black, leaving Piper and Alex frozen in a very compromising position in my television.

“She likes you.”

“Okay, you’ve had _way_ too much to drink, Arizona. Time to leave the wine aside now.”

“I’m serious! And I think you like her, too.”

“I like _Morgan_. _Love_ Morgan. Not Lexie.”

“I saw you guys earlier today. You may _think_ you like Morgan, but maybe you’re in that transition where you’re sort of over someone but not entirely. Except you’re sort of in love with someone else, in this case, Lexie Grey. And she likes you. It’s… Poetic. You’re falling in love but don’t know it yet.”

“Fine, Sherlock, but I think I know more about my own feelings than you do.”

“Wait for it, Little Shepherd. Just wait…”

Arizona turned the TV show back on with the remote, and I couldn’t be happier to end the subject. Falling in love with Lexie Grey? That’s a big, fat no.

What she said got me thinking, though. What if… No. I was confused. That’s all. I could never _ever_ fall in love with Lexie.

“What’s up with those two?” Robbins pointed at the TV. “They’re in love, and everything’s perfect, or at least as perfect as it can get in prison. But then one of them fucks up colossally and the other one insists on making sure to point out all of the mistakes that her girlfriend’s made since they weren’t even inmates and were enjoying the endless perks of a luxurious drug dealer life. So they break up and play those childish mind games that can drive you crazy, make each other jealous, sleep with Nicky or Ruby Rose or literally any hot lesbian that comes in the scene, and then they have makeup sex and everything’s fine again.”

“Their relationship is complicated, but they just can’t live without each other. It’s dangerous, overintense and kind of fucked up, but still. Love… Is love.”

“You seem to know a lot about love.”

“Shut up, Robbins.”

“Still your boss.”

“Still my apartment.”

“I guess this beats me.”

“It does. But I’m still hoping to be on your service next week…”

Arizona flashed me that incredibly bright smile of hers.

“You’ll be a great peds attending, for what it’s worth. I’ve seen the way you take care of the kids, and they even ask for you sometimes.”

“Thanks. I’m still deciding what area of expertise to choose, though. Peds is at the very top.” I took a sip of my wine glass, though I didn’t really feel like getting drunk. “Do we have cranberry juice?”

“It’s _your_ fridge, not mine. But no, Callie complained about it this week. Seems like Yang always prioritizes her chewy cookies and Cheerios and forgets to buy some of the things you guys ask for.” The blonde woman raised an eyebrow. “But you know who probably has cranberry juice? Lexie Grey. I saw you two sharing that bottle.”

“Can you _please_ stop talking about Lexie Grey?”

“Lexie and Vicki sitting on a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!” Arizona chanted, receiving what was probably the most condemnatory look I’d ever given anyone. “Sorry about that, I’ve probably been spending too much time around the kids.”

“Just… Shut up. Don’t even think of saying anything near Callie or _anyone_ else.”

“I would never.” The blonde smiled, gently tapping a cushion that rested on her lap. “But this doesn’t change the fact that she likes you.”

As if it had been planned, Callie walked into the apartment, a small paper bag in hand. She looked much calmer then – her face wasn’t red and her eyes weren’t wild as before –, placing the bag steadily on the kitchen after picked up the bowl the brownie dough (minus the nuts) was in.

“Who likes you?” She looked at me, right before opening the nut jar and throwing them in the dough.

Robbins didn’t say a thing. In fact, she seemed a tad desperate for not having anything to say.

“Nobod–” I started saying, only to be interrupted by the pediatric surgeon, who’d apparently thought of something to say a little too late.

“Lilly from radiology.” She lied.

Callie’s eyes went wide. I flashed Arizona my best “I’m going to kill you” gaze, while she looked at me apologetically with those big blue eyes that screamed “I didn’t know what to do”. The Latina grinned hopefully, and walked to the couch where I sat right after putting the brownies in the oven.

“Oh my God, Vicki, that’s incredible! Lilly’s awesome, she’s pretty, smart, funny, she can cook…” Torres sighed, and then sat between Arizona and I. “She’s a total catch.”

“Um, yeah.” I forced a smile. “Though I don’t think I want to go out with her. You know, the Morgan thing…”

“That’s _exactly_ why you have to go out with her. You’ve got to be out there again! Oh, my God, I’m going to set up a date for the two of you.”

“No!” Callie looked at me with wide eyes. “I-I mean, don’t come on that strong. She might not like to know that Arizona told me she, uh… Likes me.”

“I’ll be subtle, she won’t even know Arizona said anything.”

“Nice.” I faked a grin. “Thank you for telling me, Robbins.”

“Anytime.” The blond one gave her wine a long, quick gulp, leaving the empty glass on the coffee table.


End file.
